Virtual Machines: Do you have one ? Xen,VMware, Virtual Box

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Discussion Overview

The discussion centers around the use of virtual machines (VMs) such as Xen, VMware, and VirtualBox. Participants share their experiences and applications of virtualization technology, exploring various use cases and configurations.

Discussion Character

  • Exploratory
  • Technical explanation
  • Conceptual clarification
  • Debate/contested

Main Points Raised

  • One participant uses VirtualPC to run old MSDOS games under Windows XP, noting limitations like lack of USB controller support and slower performance compared to native mode.
  • Another participant mentions using virtualization to create a sandbox for incompatible software configurations, highlighting the ease of switching setups without data loss.
  • A different user relies on VMware Workstation for daily tasks, running Linux instances on both Mac and PC for cross-platform compilation and deployment testing.
  • One participant discusses the trend of companies consolidating servers through virtualization, leading to denser data centers.
  • IT consultants are mentioned as using virtualization to isolate projects for different clients, providing each with a separate sandbox environment.

Areas of Agreement / Disagreement

Participants share various applications and experiences with virtual machines, but no consensus is reached on the best use cases or specific technologies, indicating multiple competing views on the topic.

Contextual Notes

Some limitations include the specific configurations and software compatibility issues mentioned by participants, as well as the varying performance characteristics of different virtualization solutions.

Who May Find This Useful

This discussion may be useful for individuals interested in virtualization technology, including gamers, IT professionals, and those exploring software development across different platforms.

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Virtual Machines: Do you have one ? Xen,VMware, Virtual Box

Hi ... all ...Do you have a virtual machine ? (XEN, VMware, VirtualBox, or any other ...) ... please give more info on how you are using it ?

I''m trying to find out what are the different ways to use them ?...

how are people actually using this technology ...

anything obscure ... or random please give more info ...

thanks ...

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/9LZCZKB
 
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I use VirtualPC to run old MSDOS games under Windows XP. One shortcoming is that there is no support for USB gaming controllers. It's also slower than native mode, but the old games ran on much slower system, so that's not an issue. Other alternatives for gaming are DOSBOX and GliDos.
 


So you are running MSDOS as a virtual instance ? ... : ] ...

Cool ...
 


The last time I used anything virtualization was to set up a sandbox for broken software. We had some process control software that needed to have different incompatible configurations for different situations for one user. Switching between the two configurations took reinstallation and some extra steps. Any misstep and it ate our data. It was easier to just have another copy of Windows running in VirtualBox with the second configuration ready to go.
 


I use virtualization every day with VMWare Workstation. I can't live without it.

Both my Mac and PC have linux instances running. I generally have both a server and and a workstation instance running. This is mainly for cross-platform compilation and deployment testing.

My brother is a network engineer and he has 10+ instances running of virtual network configurations.

Tons of companies are consolidating their servers using virtualization. Data centers are getting extremely dense these days.

Also, a common thing IT consultants do to keep projects from different clients from 'contaminating' each other is to give each client their own sandbox.
 
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