The administrator UI includes a shadow management feature that allows an administrator to see where shadow copies reside in the various storage pools.
In VMware Cloud Director (vCD), if you deploy a vApp that resides in a different storage pool other than where it actually had been deployed, then vCD first deploys a shadow copy in the new storage pool. VMware Cloud Director then deploys a vApp from that shadow copy, which is essentially a double-deployment that can take a lengthy amount of time to deploy and leaves the end user waiting.
The administrator can predeploy a shadow to pools that do not already have a copy of that lab to reduce the wait time for the end user. For more information, see Pre-deployed shadow copies of VMware Lab Platform labs .
You can monitor shadow activity in VMware Cloud Director from the Cloud Shadow page in VMware Lab Platform. Information about the cloud org name, availability, and replica status per lab template is shown. More detailed information is displayed when you click the arrow next to the template name.
You can create replicas from this page by clicking on the blue replica oval and following the prompts.
