Hi, Recently I have been doing some work with a virtual machine (Ubuntu) with some specific programs installed. But what I am starting to realise is that we don't have a good documentation on exactly what is on this machine, and what changes has been made since it first was created, especially since it wasn't even created by me.
At the same time I am working alot with web applications, and use Maven, Subversion, CI etc on a daily basis. But all these wonderful tools can't be used when I work with virtual machines, even though it would be so great if that could work. In the best of worlds I would be able to build a VM (in standard OVF format) just as easily as I now build a war- or ear-file. All our specific files and configuration would be under version control in SVN, and I would just add a dependency to a "vanilla" virtual machine (like "Ubunto-64" version "9.10") and it would insert our file structure into the VM, almost like war-overlay works for web applications. And maybe some specific programs could be "installed" by the means of defining other dependencies. The advantages are obvious. One would now have complete controll of the content of the virtual machine, and not have to worry about some forgotten data in some database or file for example. And if one decided to switch from Ubuntu to say OpenSUSE it would idealy be a simple change of dependencies. Maybe even a change from Linux to Windows would be possible in the same simple manner, given that the proper license exists. What do you guys think about this idea? Is it realistic? Or maybe such a solution, or similar, already exists or is planned? /Jimi Hullegård --------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected] For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
