On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 4:17 PM, aci <[email protected]> wrote:
> XP workstations with embedded applications that have no
> way of being migrated and need to be preserved.
First, do the embedded applications have any special hardware
associated with them? Especially hardware license keys ("dongles").
Such usually doesn't work with VMs.
Occasionally one encounters a program that doesn't like VMs for no
good reasons. Such software is usually horrendously badly written.
Unfortunately, there's a lot of that stuff out there, and it often
ends up being the kind of stuff you'd like to virtualize.
If possible, contact the app vendor to get their take on virtualization.
> I would like to make a recommendation to run these as virtualized workstations
> on a spare server that I have the option of dedicating for this task.
That's a great strategy for this kind of thing (when you can do it).
> ... what virtualization software will I need ...
You've got several options. ESXi from VMware seems to be the most
popular, reportedly has many features, and is free. It installs on
the "bare metal" -- you don't run a Windows OS for the host. (You can
run as many VM guests as you want.)
There's a payware version of ESX that has tons of features, lots of
really cool stuff, but is almost certainly overkill for you.
VMware Server is also free. It installs on top of a Windows OS.
Consensus seems to be that one should use ESXi instead of VMW Server,
unless one has to co-exist with a Windows OS on the host.
There's Microsoft's offering, Virtual PC or Hyper-V or whatever
they're calling it this month. I don't know much of anything about
it, but I know many people use it successfully.
There's lots of other offerings, which I know nothing about. :)
> ... licensing is required ...
Unless you have information otherwise, treat each VM as you would a
physical machine. So each VM needs a Windows XP license, a license
for whatever apps are on there (MS Office, etc.), and so on.
Don't forget that for Microsoft, licenses purchased with a computer
("OEM") are generally married to that computer for life. You can't
transfer them to another computer, not even a VM.
> ... any additional things I should consider to implement this option.
Don't forget about backup/restore. You can treat each VM like a
regular machine and back it up from within Windows. Or you can use
snapshots or cloning in the VM technology you're using -- this backups
up the entire virtual computer. You can use both methods. The most
appropriate option depends on the situation. When you're virtualizing
legacy systems, snapshots are often the best way, since "legacy" often
implies "sucks in every way possible".
VMware has a nice tool that will convert an existing physical
machine into a VM. It used to be called P2V (physical-to-virtual);
now it's "VMware Converter". It can work with raw hard disks, hard
disk images (Ghost), or connect to a running computer and suck the
image over the network while it's running.
-- Ben
~ Finally, powerful endpoint security that ISN'T a resource hog! ~
~ <http://www.sunbeltsoftware.com/Business/VIPRE-Enterprise/> ~
