Why are VHDs beneficial?
VHDs are very useful for both laboratory and deployment testing. While software can be installed on a VHD in the same way software is installed on normal operating systems, VHDs can be discarded and re-implemented very quickly for the purposes of ensuring a pristine testing environment or if something malfunctioned with the previous VHD. Additionally, multiple VHDs can be run over a single physical platform to achieve cost savings.