My take on multiple images is two fold. But first, the disclaimer: This assumes you have sufficient resources in the first place to do this (normally real memory).
1. I don't know this to be true with Linux, but the Unix types have always been leary of having multiple applications running on the same box. First, they say that they can't guarentee performance, then they start talking about an application corrupting the memory of another application. So, one application per box if you want reliability. I haven't had the experience of memory problems in Linux, yet, so I still tend to believe this. 2. Once an application is running and is running good, it should continue to run correctly until something external happens, like putting on maintenance. So, why put on maintenance, other than security patches? A new application may need a different gcc library or such. The origional application, if not fully tested with the new changes, may fail in production. At least VM makes it a whole lot easier to define, maintain and control multiple machines. Tom Duerbusch THD Consulting >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/29/03 11:33AM >>> Philosophical question? The heart of the matter lies in why so many images in the first place? If I need a half dozen images of Linux to service the Web, but those Linux images can all be running under VM, what is different between Linux and VM that lets VM handle the concurrent workload better than Linux can? It is a variation of the old arguement as to which is better, VM and serveral VSE guests or one MVS instance.
