[nflug] Virtualization

[Eric Toczek]

Brad Bartram wrote:
>
> I deal with a lot of front end data processing - (between .25 - 2TB at
> a go) - which is analyzed by the users individually.  Storing that
> amount of data is a beast and is especially so when Oracle is
> involved.  So, by processing the data on a big server-class machine
> with lots and lots of RAM and fast disk access to both the storage
> side and the database would be a great step in increasing productivity
> and efficiency.  Virtualizing the workstation environment makes sense
> to me since the front end is pretty light once the processing is done.


You should look into Vmware View: http://vmware.com/products/view/ or
Sun xVM VDI: http://www.sun.com/software/vdi/index.jsp

I've been working on setting up a demo of it for a few clients, it's
pretty slick stuff. Basically thin clients connect to virtual
workstations on an ESX server. Allowing you to do things like suspend
the guests when not in use, create golden images which are cloned to
create vms as they are needed for users. It allows you to use some of
the backend things that ESX can do for servers at a workstation level,
like the ability to do snapshots when a user logs in, so when they log
off it rolls back the VM to the initial image, then add on stuff like
DRS (vmotion of virtual machines around to distribute load). One of the
things I think is pretty cool is the new feature Vmware added of
Distributed Power Managment, so if you have an esx cluster for your
Virtual Desktops, DRS will consolidate virtual machines down to a few
servers when activity dies down, and poweroff the ESX server to save
resources, then WOL them back to life and distribute out the VMs when
activity picks back up.





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