Gregory K. Ruiz-Ade([EMAIL PROTECTED])@Mon, Aug 21, 2006 at 09:08:00AM -0700: > On Aug 21, 2006, at 12:09 AM, Todd Walton wrote: > > >Seems like a lot of overhead to me. (But isn't that the story of > >practical computing?) > > Honestly, I like the idea of virtual appliances, especially for large/ > complex software packages. I'd be really cool if, say, there was a > Plone virtual appliance that I could download and fire up in VMware > Player (or Server) and simply assign network settings and names to, > instead of having to grind it all into place manually. >
This part of the equation where settings are intelligently preconfigured, and networking is more modular. Less manual details to twiddle is good. I do find it difficult, however, to set up an application that does all the work behind the scenes. Especially where the abstraction that is presented to the user actually misrepresents the underlying structure. Knowing the structure and details of the environment or application should always *help*, regardless. IMO the CUPS configuration is done right. Regardless of whether you use the CLI or the web interface, the configuration is straight forward, and clear - I've never used the other graphical configuration tools for CUPS. The point is that these virtual appliances could easily cause just as much of an issue with configuration as the regular applications, depending on how they put it all together. Here's hoping it really does get better, not just "easier". > Kind of like the concept of LiveCDs, I suppose, but slightly different. Identical, really, except different! ;-) > > As a side note, I've taken to using VMware extensively for trying out > various OS LiveCD images. Actually _very_ handy. > > I thought virtualization was cool when VMware first came on the > scene. Now that the average new computer has processing power to > spare, I really think virtualization has finally become practical. I think it still matters how well you use the power of the machine. While it may not matter for many applications, there are applications that carry quite a load, and adding the overhead of a VM, kernel, etc, for each server application just doesn't seem to me like the best use of resources. I'm not putting down the use of virtual machines at all. I simply suspect there is a better methodology for application installation. If there is a need to run in a virtual server, would it be any better to use Xen, UML, or another OSS solution? Plus there are already virtual server solutions and the ability to run chrooted servers. I would need a lot more convincing that VMWare based virtual appliances are going to take network applications in the best direction. Wade Curry syntaxman -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-list
