Virtualizing Workstations For Common Hardware?

An anonymous reader writes "We have approximately 20 workstations which all have different hardware specs. Every workstation has two monitors and generally runs either Ubuntu or Windows. I had started using Clonezilla to copy the installs so we could deploy new workstations quickly and easily, when we have hardware failures or the like, but am struggling with Windows requiring new drivers to be installed for all new hardware. Obviously we could be booting into Ubuntu and then load a Windows virtual machine after that, but I'd prefer not to have the added load of a full GUI underneath Windows — we want maximum performance possible. And I don't think the multi-monitor support would work. Is it possible to have a very basic virtual machine beneath to provide hardware consistency whilst still allowing multi-monitor support? Does anyone have any experience with a technique like this?"

Comments

Yes

[solid_liq]

It's call Norton Ghost.

Re:Yes

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit off-topic, but related to virtualization, so here's my question:

What's the best way for me to make a "snapshot" of an existing, functional Windows XP system, such that I can boot up (a copy of) this system at a later point in time?

Background: I have a computer running Windows XP, with a bevy of development tools (including databases, IDE's, build system, etc.) installed, involving loads of configurations, etc. I have not current use for this environment, but for legacy purposes would like the option of firing it up in the future, should I need to do a demo or explain it to someone else.

I have no real experience with virtualization, but it sounds relevant / useful here. What I'm picturing is an "image" / snapshot of the system, which I can later run within a virtual machine in some other operating system. How can I do that? Or do you recommend a different approach?

Thanks!

Re:Yes

[YrWrstNtmr]

What's the best way for me to make a "snapshot" of an existing, functional Windows XP system, such that I can boot up (a copy of) this system at a later point in time?

DriveImage XML

Re:Yes

[Z34107]

What you're looking for is ImageX. You can get it from the Windows AIK. (It says "Windows 7 AIK", but it will work on XP.)

Recipe for win:

1. Create a Windows PE flash drive. This pretty much gets you a bootable Vista/7 kernel.
2. Copy ImageX.exe from the WAIK onto the flash drive.
3. Boot your computer from the flash drive. Use imagex /capture /compress fast c: z:\file_on_external.wim "description in quotes" to create a .WIM image file.

You can take that WIM image and re-apply it to your computer at a later date. Windows activation and all of your programs will be preserved. You can also mount WIM files like directories using imagex /mount.

However, you will not be able to take an XP install and move it to a system with different hardware. XP's drivers and HAL will throw a fit if you move it to a computer that's too different, although similar-enough hardware will "mostly work."

You can download and run Sysprep from Microsoft before you capture an image. It strips out some of the hardware and user-specific settings and returns the computer to XP's "mini setup" mode, where it will ask you for username/password/CD key/whatever. But even then, XP images are still very hardware bound; more often than not an image won't work until booting from an XP CD and doing a repair install.

Re:Yes

[YttriumOxide]

I think that was GNUALMAFUERTE's point. Those jobs DO serve a valid need in today's system, but only because there are fundamental flaws in today's system. I agree with him on that. Now, he never actually said that the flawless system COULD exist in the real world, and therefore also never said that those professions could be done away with if we improved the system. If he thinks it would be possible, then I disagree with that part, but still agree that the professions only exist to work around flaws (a "glitch" in his words).

To clarify on your answers:

Are you in business? Because if you are, your accountant had better save you lots more money than he/she costs. And no, I'm not talking about complex tax laws, I'm talking about simple asset and expense management. Companies which aren't tightly controlled in accounting burn through cash like you wouldn't believe. It's the accountants who (ahem) account for it all and help control expenses and maximize return on investment!

In a perfect world, economics would be simple enough for anyone to handle it without needing an accountant. The "better save you lots more than he/she costs" is hiding the issue a bit, because regardless they ARE costing money, and that money has to come from somewhere. Under the current system, a good accountant will save you more money than they cost and therefore from YOUR point of view you've saved some money, but overall the money had to come out of somewhere, so someone has to be losing out of the deal. IF we could find a system where accountants weren't needed, this money would be distributed more appropriately.

Your lawyer is there to advise you of the rules of the road. And those rules generally aren't arbitrary, they are complex and detailed because reality is complex and detailed. Laws generally get passed in response to real situations that have really happened! But do you know this? Sorry, of course you don't. And that's why when you are in legal trouble, you get a lawyer. Just the other day, I had a 2 hour interview with my lawyer save me some $100,000 cash. You think I don't value my laywer?

I'll try to ignore your snark about "of course you don't [know this]". The lawyer deals with complex laws because the laws are complex. You claim the laws are complex because they're based on reality, but I disagree with this. The laws are complex because they're a highly patched system. They've never been simplified and only become more complex over time as new patches are added. I contest that it SHOULD be possible to create sets of laws that are VASTLY simpler than the current laws of most nations, to the point that pretty much everyone would understand them easily. (the likely downside is that writing such a set of laws without loopholes is an exceedingly complex task... it only needs to be done once, but I think the ability to do so is well beyond us right now)

Marketing droids are (I hate to say) some of the most valuable members of an organization. Sure, some are idiots - such as those running the current Verizon ads (which seem to go out of their way to convince me NOT to buy Verizon hi-speed smart phones) but they are the exception. They are there to generate demand for the products of an organization. If they weren't there, selling the widgets that the engineers produce, there wouldn't be any need for engineers to produce anything because nobody would want them. They wouldn't even know that they exist! (which, even the Verizon idiots are succeeding at)

That relies on the assumption that there's a need to "sell" a product rather than only producing things people want/need. There are businesses that do extra-ordinarily well without advertising or other forms of marketing, purely because they're "needs based" only. Examples include the market for non-fiction books, non-speciality bread, and electricity providers in areas where you have no choice. The purpose of marketing a product is to make your po

Re:Yes

[tehcyder]

In a perfect world, economics would be simple enough for anyone to handle it without needing an accountant.

In a perfect world you wouldn't have economics, accountants or even money, because everything would be free and limitless. Quite what relevance this has to the real world is beyond me, however.

not a cure-all

[CAIMLAS]

Virtualization is not a cure-all (and your approach is wrong, to boot).

What you're looking to do is use the latest, greatest technology for profit(!!!). You're going about it wrong. There are plenty of other, better technologies to accomplish the same basic thing. Proper system imagining/installation via something like an installation server.

When you've got 20 workstations, you're at that cusp of continuing on the path you're on (and hopefully, resorting to a method of consistent repeatability) or deciding on a different approach - thin clients, perhaps. Or maybe virtualization is the right approach - but I can guarantee that there's likely no good reason to virtualize Windows on top of each of the 20 workstations that couldn't be solved with better design.

Honestly, if you're one of multiple IT in a place with only 20 workstations, you're seriously over-staffed. Someone - if not you, someone else - is going to figure this out, and figure out a way to make themselves important and you redundant. Even with moderate consistency and controls, a single competent Administrator should be able to take care of 5 times as many workstations and a handful of servers without too much sweat.

Xen?

[the_humeister]

But only if you have hardware virtualization support.

Re:Slipstream the drivers + update the .iso

[Anonymous Coward]

I did this when I had to maintain a computer lab of about 250 machines and 6-7 different hardware profiles between them. Turned the multi-stage update nightmare I inherited from my predecessor into a (relatively) painfree couple of hours some evening after any patch Tuesday.

We did something else which was a lot more useful

[Merc248]

I used unattended on a FreeBSD box at one of my old jobs, since we had like five or so different models of computers. It works sort of like RIS, except it's easier to extend the system since it's all written in Perl and it's all open source. We dumped the contents of an XP disc on the server, then slipstreamed driver packs into the disc directory structure; this catches almost everything but the most obscure hardware out there. Unattended allowed us to run post-install scripts, so we threw in a bunch of other software packages that would install after the OS was done installing, like Office 2007, Adobe suite, etc.

This was substantially better than a disk image; we took care of all of the drivers in one fell swoop, so the only thing we used as a differentiator between computers was how the person used the computer (if it's a student lab computer, we loaded a bunch of stuff like Geometer's Sketchpad, InDesign, etc. If it was a faculty's laptop, we'd load software to operate stuff in the classroom.) We save space on the server, and we save time when it comes to putting together another "image" for a different use case.

But as others said above, I wouldn't virtualize the workstation, even if it eases up on the IT dept. a little bit; just be smart about what deployment method you use. I wouldn't recommend using unattended if you had only about three different models; it's likely substantially easier to just use CloneZilla.

Oh, and use a centralized software deployment system such as WPKG. Your disk images will go stale after a while, in which case you'll have to make sure that you can manage the packages installed on clients somehow.

VM can be a silver bullet in the right scenario.

[Anonymous Coward]

Your last line was absolutely spot on.

One image per machine is the wrong way to go about dealing with with hardware/driver conflicts. The effort and money could be better spent on gradually replacing odd-lot hardware with something standardized. For the windows machines, I find that 10-30 RDP sessions on one VM server, with 4-6 servers per virtualized host, now that works. I've had around 300-600 sessions virtualized across perhaps 10-20 servers in a dozen heterogeneous sites over the past 5 years. No catastrophic losses, not one customer has complained about speed issues or canceled the service for any reason, and a grand total of ~20 days of downtime across all servers, primarily to reboot for patches and updates. The kicker is that these would be Windows 2003 + 2008 servers on Windows Server 2000, 2003 and 2008 hosts, plus a handful of XP single-user images for special circumstances. Egad, really?!?! Windows VM on Windows hosts? Yes, really. Only very recently have I switched some hosts over to Linux or ESXi, and frankly, there's very little meaningful performance difference; the switch was undertaken largely to free up license slots on back end servers which have no user access. I love Linux and open source but the FUD and misinformation floating around regarding windows reliability and performance is .. well it doesn't square with my experience. But, I'm tired of arguing about it with people. Do some of your own benchmarks and see for yourself.

Even inexpensive server hardware (4k-8k range) is overkill, performance-wise, for a well-balanced, optimized VM internal cluster with sensible backup and monitoring controls. This arrangement has allowed me to more or less single-handedly manage the entire user base referred to above, for the entire time. I've reached the point where I cannot handle the new business that is steered my way by present clients via word of mouth. I have evicted 6 or 7 In-house "IT guys" who were sitting on their rears playing WoW 4 days a week, tending a tiny garden of 15-30 machines.