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DailyTech Poll Discussion What’s the best use of desktop virtualization?
Steve Kovsky (Blog) - September 4, 2009 9:14 AM
Print 16 comment(s) - last by tastyratz.. on Sep 8 at 3:44 PM
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What’s the best use of desktop virtualization?
  • Testing and development. Virtualization lets you create multiple virtual machines on a single piece of hardware, so it’s a perfect environment for experimentation. (700 votes)
  •  
    52%
  • Deploying thin clients. A single system can host many virtual desktops, which can be more cost effective than dropping a PC on every desk -- and it allows tighter IT controls and/or more flexibility for users. (359 votes)
  •  
    27%
  • Sorry – but it’s useless! I can’t think of any reason to virtualize a desktop. (179 votes)
  •  
    13%
  • No idea! The jury is still out on this one. . . (101 votes)
  •  
    8%

  • 1,339 total votes

Comments     Threshold


This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled
By PAPutzback on 9/4/2009 9:50:00 AM , Rating: 2
I have one running XP with Foxpro and Visual Basic 6 and SQL 2000 Enterprise manager for maintaining old DTS packages.
Another one with SQL 2005, VS 2005 and reporting Services.
And yesterday I created one with SQL 2008 and Biztalk 2009 to train on.




By sheh on 9/7/2009 9:21:42 PM , Rating: 2
Wouldn't it be nice if you could just install them all on the native OS without them breaking each other? I hope this devolution since DOS would get resolved soon enough.


By hardwaremister on 9/8/2009 1:16:15 PM , Rating: 2
Uh?

It has absolutely nothing to do with DOS or anything like that. Many (modern) enterprise-level apps can't function with different releases of the same tool on the same machine, let alone the same app twice.
As an example you can't have two instances of sqlserver2005 or the 2005&2000 and expect many aspects of the environment to work properly.
The same applies to loads of apps (business objects, etc...).

Anyway, virtualization is a magnificent tool to test environments, create networks and simulate scenarios before deploying anything. It's also very good for consolidating lightweight vm's into a server, but it still has not reached prime time for Datawarehousing, etl and reporting where speed and data volumes are a worry in normal environments. It's just way too slow for disk-bound heavy-duty apps in a production scenario.

Take care.


By tastyratz on 9/8/2009 3:44:07 PM , Rating: 2
Personally, I have no experience virtualizing from the end user desktop level.

What kind of overhead does virtualization itself consume? While we use thin clients at work - I am talking from a home user single machine perspective. I like the idea of it for creating multiple environments. I still use this box for multiple things (gaming, general use, etc)
So if you have a virtualized install of an OS... how much overhead do you lose to vmware/etc. vs just booting the os directly? how does it run in real life? lots of cpu cycles/mem consumed?


It has many uses
By EricMartello on 9/4/2009 1:04:32 PM , Rating: 2
I find virtualization to be useful for a variety of tasks:

- Consolidating servers.
- Thin clients.
- Testing, development, experimentation.
- Supporting legacy apps.

There are some caveats when using virtualization to consolidate clients or servers - you are giving up redundancy. You could conceivably put 50-60 "usually idle" servers onto one or two boxes using virtualization, but if either of those boxes fail then all 50-60 of your virtual servers are going to be down, whereas standalone machines are not going to have that same effect. Something to think about when exploring this option.




RE: It has many uses
By HrilL on 9/7/2009 9:42:16 AM , Rating: 3
quote:
There are some caveats when using virtualization to consolidate clients or servers - you are giving up redundancy. You could conceivably put 50-60 "usually idle" servers onto one or two boxes using virtualization, but if either of those boxes fail then all 50-60 of your virtual servers are going to be down, whereas standalone machines are not going to have that same effect. Something to think about when exploring this option.


Very true but even so with this consolidation It would be wise to have a cloned system just in case your main server does go down you can have all systems back up shortly or you have them running with some type of file over. Terminal servers you can spread the load onto more than one server. You should never have a single point of failure for production servers.


The REAL reason
By ZachDontScare on 9/7/2009 2:19:38 PM , Rating: 2
Now lets all list the REAL reason to use VMs.... so you can run games on your work machine without your company knowing about it.




RE: The REAL reason
By sheh on 9/7/2009 9:22:32 PM , Rating: 2
Or running games that would not run on the native OS/hardware.


Missing some choices...
By Spivonious on 9/4/2009 9:43:17 AM , Rating: 2
Our main use of virtualization has been to replace aging servers. We've been able to consolidate almost 40 servers onto a single 4-machine VMWare server.

Since we're starting to push out thin clients (Citrix-based...ugh) I voted for the thin client option.

We also use them for software testing, as we can revert to a plain image very quickly. I don't think virtual machines could provide decent performance for development.




Windows on a Mac
By dagamer34 on 9/4/2009 10:02:34 AM , Rating: 2
I use it for Windows on a Mac for the few programs that aren't on OS X.




Thin Clients
By DOOA on 9/4/2009 1:20:54 PM , Rating: 2
For testing and as noted above, throw away OS episodes Virtual Machines are great. Even servers have a place.
But for thin clients IMO it is a disaster. The roll out seems to go well but when the reality of maintenance, anti virus programs, backups, etc. that eat up CPU time hits home Virtual Machines as thin clients are too slow. The upside of cheaper IT costs does not make up for the time and frustration of the end user.




Cisco VPN
By MetaDFF on 9/4/2009 7:00:17 PM , Rating: 2
A virtualized Windows XP is the only way to run the older versions of Cisco VPN on a Vista x64 machine.

Before I discovered virtualization I had to keep a second box around for Cisco VPN, but now everything is consolidated into one box.




Voting For Pennies
By kake on 9/5/2009 2:04:36 PM , Rating: 2
I wonder, who is DailyTech selling these poll results and underlying data to? Could the buyer be someone in the virtualization market?

Do I feel just a little dirty even looking at the blue lines up there?

*looks for the bleach*




need to be careful...
By dgingeri on 9/7/2009 10:42:18 AM , Rating: 2
I've seen thin clients work on a limited basis, but every time I've seen someone implement them on a wide scale, it has failed miserably due to load on one component or another. In addition, this means a single point of failure for all company systems.

my last company did this right, by creating hundreds of virtual servers for load balancing and failover. I use virtual PC to test out software on a limited basis and to run old software.

There are many good things about it, but be careful and prudent. if you overuse it, you could pay for it.




Porn
By Christobevii3 on 9/4/09, Rating: -1
RE: Porn
By Yawgm0th on 9/4/2009 11:09:14 AM , Rating: 2
In all seriousness, a virtual machine can be a great way to use files and web sites that might otherwise pose a security risk. You simply restore the virtual machine to its previous state once you're done with whatever it is you're doing. ;)

Ugh, I'm feeding the DT/MS virtualization marketing machine just by posting.


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