We're using Lab Manager within our QA group. We use it to quickly deliver environments we need for testing.
We have 25 Templates, 14 Library Configurations and counting.
To build up our templates we:
Create a base template that is a bare bones version of Server 2008 + basic configuration (Windows Update, Firewall exceptions)
Create a linked clone for each Server template we need (SQL Server 08, 05, etc)
Repeat for other OS's, like Windows 7 and Windows XP
Then we create configurations:
Create a workspace configuration with multiple images in it (Say Server 08 w/SQL Server and Windows 7)
Deploy the configuration and make some minor configuration changes
Undeploy and Capture to Library
How do we keep this manageable? When I need to update a configuration, should I:
Rebuild it from templates
Clone it to a workspace, make changes, recapture it to the library
keep the configuration in my workspace (don't delete it after capturing it to library), deploy it to make changes and then re-capture to library
