Cloning LVM partitions?

Question

linux

Question for LVM experts.
The task is to make the most competent staging platform for developers. There is a server with a couple of disks in hw-raid (3ware 9650se), a mountain of memory; The server has Xen4, LVM is used to quickly create disks for virtual machines. The main question is how to properly organize long-term solid backups.
It is probably best to use the snapshot mechanism for this. However, as far as I understand, the created snapshot is nailed to the original volume, i.e., the original cannot be renamed, deleted (or can it?).
What is the best way to approach the problem? I would like, say, to install a base system in a virtual domain and make a snapshot, which will later be used to quickly deploy other virtual domains, add applications, snapshot again, delete old / corrupted / etc.
It turns out that you need snapshots from snapshots that do not depend on each other.
I'm willing to put up with backing up unused disk space, but I'm not willing to back it up with dd because it's too damn long and not native.
What are my options?
How is it done by large cloud providers?
How much more profitable can SAN be in such a situation?

Perhaps I did not formulate the request correctly, please clarify :)

Answer 1

Here's what you want - implemented now in Xen Server. And this background diff model has a fucking free space overhead. Just one day the administrator realizes that he no longer has a place. Therefore, I turn off this mega feature when creating a clone, leaving room for expanse for dd. Slow, but reliable.