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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?"
VMWare View is what you want.
I do. The short answer: Don't.
Just on the interactivity alone, it's slow response, you spend extra seconds loading windows, menus, and after awhile those extra seconds add up to real productivity loss. Virtualization belongs on servers and in labs, where interactivity is less important than raw horsepower. For a workstation, don't virtualize. It's painful.
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It's easy enough to slipstream (lots of) extra drivers and periodically update a master install .iso using tools such as nlite.
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I am in a virtualized environment and it works fine. I guess it really depends on your situation.
Most of my users are using basic business apps. For these things, Citrix XenApps (I think that is the name this week) works well.
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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.
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NxTop is pretty cool. It is a hypervisor that installs directly onto the client hardware, allowing you to pull and boot pre-configured images over the network. The hypervisor removes the need for specialized drivers and supports dual monitors. It also has the advantage over VMwareView of allowing the OS to sync for offline use if you would like to leave the office with a laptop. Sure VMware has it as an "experimental" feature now, but it is production with these guys. They came and did a demo for us the other day, pretty cool stuff. I think it was affordable too. You can set policies for who gets what images, remotely disable a lost or stolen laptop, etc. Check this out: http://www.virtualcomputer.com/About/press/nxtop-pc-management-launch-massively-scalable-desktop-virtualization-for-mobile-pcs
You're just making it harder than it needs to be. Use Ghost, Acronis, KACE, or any of the other semi-hardware agnostic imaging systems. Failing that, just take individual images of each peice of disparate hardware. Just takes a little one time act for each peice of hardware, and a large disk drive.
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this was solved a long time ago. Sysprep allows you to bundle whatever drivers you want, and it will just load what it needs on first boot. Combine that with a network imaging solution (back when I worked in that area, we used ZENworks, but there are other options), and ideally network installs of software (i.e. the image should be a base OS and not much else) and you should have limited problems. A new machine type will require a new image, but you can just deploy the old one, add the new drivers, run sysprep and re-create the image. I never had to do mass-imaging of Linux machines, but surely you could take a similar approach for the Ubuntu images?
What is...?
Not always is a common solution the right one. Many times they lack the requisite low level IO needed to do the job right.
Take, for instance, DDC/CI. I don't know what you're doing and that's fine, but in my line of work we have to talk to the monitor. You ain't doin' that on a virtual machine.
Just because it's virtual doesn't mean it's better.
It's not cheap so might not be a viable option for a smaller shop, but VMware has been making some very interesting strides in this area.
Check out VMware View, also known as PCoIP (Yes, that is personal computer over internet protocol)
http://www.vmware.com/products/view/
http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/10083
Put really simply, each real workstation is loaded with a minimal system and the vmware view clients.
When a user goes to login to a computer on your network, after authentication their virtual workstation pops up (Be it windows or ubuntu) and lets them work.
All of the actual 'workstations' being used are virtual machines, thus are the same unified image you are looking for with one set of drivers.
While I have not tested it with a multi-monitor setup, they claim it is supported.
The one main thing you do lose is full accelerated 3D support, and direct support for old eccentric hardware. (Think ISA card support and non-standard PCI interfaces)
I can say USB support is simply amazing in how well it works.
Clients can even play full interactive flash media and video, and it runs well (As well as one would expect it to work in native OS anyway)
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.
"Hegelians, who love a synthesis, will probably conclude that he wears a wig." - Bertrand Russell
VMWare has a tool to create an image from a "real" PC.http://www.vmware.com/products/converter/
What is...?
Bare-metal client hypervisor's are a fairly new technology with the leading ones "which are still in development" being from Citrix and VMware.
This makes me a little distraught, since hypervisors have been around for 30+ years.
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Am I right?
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:
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.
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You're doing this in a laboratory situation, not in the realworld. Your approach will not work when you're talking about running a hundred, or a thousand, concurrent VMs on commodity hardware.
Woah. Hold on. Who said anything about running hundreds, even thousands of concurrent VMs? I think the parent (and actually the subject) is talking about single local box, single VM.
I've been doing the same thing for a few years now. I can't escape Windows apps so I run a VM to provide a Windows desktop. That's worked pretty well for me except for lately where performance has degraded - I suspect due to my using a real partition (which is no longer supported). Co-worker of mine does the same thing and has no issues whatsoever (which he points out when I grumble at my VM).
Logical enough, that is if you're Pavel Chekov.
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Thinking about it, it's how capitalism works. Accountants, lawyers, marketing droids, most managers, bankers 90% of government employees, etc,etc. None of them do anything productive. They have a job JUST because there's a glitch on the system.
If that's what you think of Accountants, lawyers, marketing droids, managers, and bankers, it's because you haven't a clue yet.
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!
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?
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)
And so on. Each profession has its place, and each presents value to your company and your society. Generally, this value is greater than the cost of the salary, etc. of the individual(s) involved. As in all things involving people, there is some corruption. There are lawyers who are a waste of oxygen, just as there are engineers who are a waste of perfectly good coffee. (See Wally from Dilbert comics, for a stereotyped example)
But you can't dismiss them all, because they actually DO something, even if you aren't aware of what it is, yet!
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
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
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And the really great part is that sun virtualbox can read the vmware virtual machine created by that tool.
and vmconverter can eat a lot of diskimages format also (BUT NOT ALWAY THE VERY LATEST, check before spending time on it!!)
Before you start with any tool it is nice to clean of any unwanted software and restore points, clean the trashcan (Crapcleaner tool), and try to fill all unused space on the disk with zero's.
BTW, I learned the hard way that truecrypt is incompatibele with any on the fly diskimagers.
Get a hold of yourself. It was an honest mistake.
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.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it