Life, Virtualized (or: 3 reasons I love the virtual machine)
One of the things that me mate Dave has written a good bit about recently is virtualization. Although I'm not an infrastructure expert, I find using virtual machines tremendously useful, for three reasons:
1. Managing my (Mini)-Infrastructure
My life at home is virtualized: I use the free Virtual Server 2005 to manage my humble server "infrastructure." I run 3 different virtual machines on a low-powered server box which is sitting in the corner. Distributed between those 3 virtual machines are my domain controller (and other router-y bits), my Team Foundation Server, and my media server, which streams tunes on demand to my XBox360. [More in this setup in the comments below.]
I find the setup extremely flexible, easy to manage and maintain. As and when I need to upgrade my hardware, I will simply move those virtual PC images to a new box, fire them up, and away we go.
2. Demos that require elaborate setup
I also sometimes use virtual machines for demos. Because it's easy to "freeze dry" a machine in a demo configuration (my terminology, not theirs), I can prep a virtual machine image until it's "just right," and then repeatedly restore it to that exact state for a number of demos.
3. Evaluating Software without hassle
The third thing I use virtual machines for is evaluating software.
What's great about evaluating software via a virtual machine is that you don't have to bother with configuring or installing anything. Instead, you just copy in the monstrous VHD (virtual hard drive) file, fire it up, and jump straight into walkthroughs and hands-on labs, or just mess around. And there's no need to clean up, because you didn't install any software (beta or released) on your PC - just the self-contained sandbox that is the virtual drive image.
We've had a great Team System / Team Foundation Server virtual machine image available through MSDN Subscriptions for quite a while now.
Some great recent news is that Microsoft has launched the VHD (Virtual Hard Drive) Test Drive Program, which will enable customers and partners to evaluate even more mainstream enterprise software from Microsoft and partners. As this program launches, we have pre-configured VHDs of Windows Server 2003 R2 and key Microsoft applications such as SQL Server, ISA Server, and Exchange Server + Live Communication Server.
"With the VHD Test Drive Program, we will also enable our partners for the first time to now be able to distribute their applications and solutions as a pre-configured VHD built on top of Windows Server 2003 R2 and leveraging other Microsoft applications."
Here's more information about Microsoft's VHD Test Drive program.
For now, I leave you with this thought: You know that episode of Star Trek when yer man from the holodeck realizes he's living in a virtual world and wishes he could be out in the real world? Do you think programs on a virtual machine ever realize they're on a virtual machine... and wish they were out running on a real machine?
Comments
Anonymous
November 17, 2006
Can you elaborate more on the specs on your virtual host server? I've been thinking about doing the same exact thing, running a mid range server that sits in the corner to host various development servers for different projects that I'm working on at any one time. But, in my experience just running my virtuals on my main desktop is pretty resource intensive. (Using VMWare anyway) I'd be interested in hearing more about your set up and if you did anything specific to the dedicated host to reduce its footprint. In a perfect world I'd like to see a Microsoft Virtual Host O/S that was nothing but a kernel, Virtual Server and a tiny little web server that let you administer the virtual servers on it. That way it, the host uses the minimal amount of resources possible.Anonymous
November 17, 2006
The comment has been removedAnonymous
November 17, 2006
What setup do you have for media streaming for the XBox360? My files are in a Win2003 R2 machine and I cannot get the Xbox to play the files (but it does "see" them).Anonymous
November 17, 2006
Dave & Rob - do some searches on longhorn and hypervisor. I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at what is coming next year :-)Anonymous
November 17, 2006
Eddie - One of my virtual machines is running Windows XP, with Media Connect installed. I think you're right - I couldn't figure out how to get Windows 2003 to stream media to the XBox 360, no matter how hard I tried. (If anyone has figured this out, I'm all ears!)Anonymous
November 17, 2006
I was asked in a mail what I meant by a slow processor. I'm away for the weekend so I don't have the exact stats on me, but for now, it's a low-powered AMD processor sitting in one of these AOpen Cubes: http://xc.aopen.com.tw/CubeProduct-mini.aspx?type=25&names=EZ/%20EX/%20EY/%20EU&adauno_t=84 Really, there's no horsepower to speak of here, but it's quiet and it's low power. To serve up what I'm doing all I need is a splash of memory.Anonymous
November 17, 2006
Mcsieinf -- Thank you for that! Dave told me about Hypervisor a while back and I think that it's only now I've groked its significance. Wow. Happy days!!Anonymous
November 19, 2006
Rob Burk has an interesting article on Virtualization, entitled "Life, Virtualized". Very cool idea,...Anonymous
January 09, 2007
I'm watching the Bill Gates CES keynote today. For me, the coolest announcement is the Microsoft HomeAnonymous
February 06, 2007
My life is virtualized . Me mate Dave writes a lot about virtualization . And I was told yesterday IAnonymous
February 20, 2007
Microsoft has just released Virtual PC 2007 as a free download . Virtual PC, if you haven't used it,Anonymous
June 07, 2008
One of the things that me mate Dave has written a good bit about recently is virtualization. Although I'm not an infrastructure expert, I find using virtual machines tremendously useful, for three reasons: 1. Managing my (Mini)-Infrastructure My life