I hope I am asking this in the right place, but let me know if it's not. My question requires some background, and I apologize if this becomes a lengthy wall of text.
I work at a mid-sized process automation company, that supports many different DCS, PLC, and HMI systems. Understanding what those are isn't important, but what is important is that each of these systems requires one or more pieces of software to interface with it. Naturally, we can't install all of this software on our laptops due to space requirements, compatibility issues, resource management, and a slew of other reasons.
But virtualization has made it possible for each employee to carry around copies of all the software they may need at any given time, on site or at the office, in one neat package. Each package contains several machines of varying OSs, and snapshots with all the software one might need. We currently use VirtualBox because it's free. But as we continue to grow I worry about the viability of this platform as a whole. There is little management being done on these packages. They are not centrally updated and each user customizes or even adds to their package creating a disparity between copies. What we are starting to see, in effect, is "VM Sprawl." This is not adventageous from a security or support standpoint.
So, if you've followed along so far, you're probably screaming at me that one power house of a host(s) can satisfy all of our VM needs, right? We already do this through an ESXi host with applications that don't require portability, but the catch is that each person also needs to have access to any VM when they're not at the office.
So that brings me to my question. Is there any vmware product that can allow us to utilize the VMs of a host, via clones or some similar manner, on an as needed, portable basis, which after some time would reconnect with the host when it's reachable again? File persistence would not be a concern with this portable copy. Or, if such a thing does not exist, does anyone have any other insight or suggestion to the problem?