Method and system for providing a roaming remote desktop

A non-transitory computer-readable storage medium embodying computer program instructions for providing a roaming remote desktop, the operations comprising:

• maintaining a plurality of identical base disks at respective virtual machine (VM) hosting sites, the VM hosting sites being further configured to maintain redo logs which store differences between parent and linked clone VMs;
• identifying a VM hosting site proximate to a location of a client device;
• migrating a linked clone VM to a VM host at the identified VM hosting site;
• and
• establishing a remote desktop connection between the client device and the linked clone VM,
• wherein, at any given time, the linked clone VM is actively linked to one of the base disks and passively linked to one or more other base disks, the active and passive links being maintained as metadata in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM,
• wherein the link between the linked clone VM and a base disk at the identified VM hosting site is changed to an active link and the remaining links between the linked clone VM and the other base disks are passive links after the linked clone VM is migrated to the VM host at the identified VM hosting site, and
• wherein updates to one of the base disks upon which the linked clone VM relies are automatically propagated to other base disks that are identified as copies of the updated one of the base disks based on the active and passive links.

A system, comprising:

• a processor;
• and
• a memory, wherein the memory includes a program, the program being configured to perform operations for providing a roaming desktop, comprising:
• maintaining a plurality of identical base disks at respective virtual machine (VM) hosting sites, the VM hosting sites being further configured to maintain redo logs which store differences between parent and linked clone VMs,
• identifying a VM hosting site proximate to a location of a client device,
• migrating a linked clone VM to a VM host at the identified VM hosting site, and
• establishing a remote desktop connection between the client device and the linked clone VM,
• wherein, at any given time, the linked clone VM is actively linked to one of the base disks and passively linked to one or more other base disks, the active and passive links being maintained as metadata in a file representing a redo log of the linked clone VM,
• wherein the link between the linked clone VM and a base disk at the identified VM hosting site is changed to an active link and the remaining links between the linked clone VM and the other base disks are passive links after the linked clone VM is migrated to the VM host at the identified VM hosting site, and
• wherein updates to one of the base disks upon which the linked clone VM relies are automatically propagated to other base disks that are identified as copies of the updated one of the base disks based on the active and passive links.