7 Uses for a Virtual Machine

7 Uses for a Virtual Automobile

VMWare has appear the release of VMWare Server 1.0 for FREE. Formerly known as GSX server, this production allows yous to accept a reasonably powerful server (say a box with two processors and 4 GB of memory) and lets you serve up virtual machines. Virtual machines, by the way, are all-time thought of as piffling instances of a computer, acting as if it'south a whole computer with network IP and everything, running on a bigger box. So, y'all tin load the software, build virtual machines, and those machines (software) will act like they're full-fledged computers in their own right.

This isn't dual-booting or division. You can access these all at the same fourth dimension. (The more running at one fourth dimension, the slower things will eventually get). You tin network them together with a virtual network switch.

Who cares? Too techy! Stick with me, kids.

Uses for Virtual Machines

• Try new operating systems– Want to try out Ubuntu? Put together a VM (shorthand for virtual machine) and build Ubuntu on information technology. Suddenly, you can launch and try dozens of operating systems without much hassle.
• Exam your software– Are you lot the adjacent 37Signals? You can use VMs to try your software or web app or even site design on a diverseness of boxes by just building virtual machines and running the tests at that place. Considering the "machines" boil downward to a couple of files, the cool thing is, y'all can copy them, you can back them upwardly. You tin burn them to a DVD and ship a fully configured system to someone across the world.
• Ready an office quickly– Imagine yous're gearing upward for a political campaign, or y'all're going to build a retail store in a new boondocks. Yous demand an part with a mail service server, a print server, a file server, and some desktop systems. You lot could have your people on the footing get buy a server from the local reckoner store (or ship i, any), and ship them the DVD with your images on it (or a hard bulldoze). About a half 60 minutes later, you could take everything configured and running. Imagine emergency management logistics with this in identify?
• Small-scale Biz disaster recovery– This isn't highly recommended, merely information technology'd piece of work if you're bootstrapping. Say you're hosting a few webservers with your amazing app on them. Your house gets hitting past lightning. Your site is off the air. Now, imagine that scenario but you've got virtual backups of the latest build and configuration set to install and deploy wherever else you've got a indicate of presence. Poof. You're online again.
• Build child boxes– Build Edubuntu (a child flavored Ubuntu) on a virtual motorcar for the kids (the specs I mention above are for heavy users, but yous could get away with a lot less if you lot but ran ONE VM). If (when) things go sour from one too many "tweaks," just drop the VM and restore from your pristine re-create. Talk about easy. You can get them back on the cyberspace in under 10 minutes.
• Fill-in your system– When you get ready to move from XP to Vista, you can use VMWare to make a fill-in of your one-time system. If things become horribly sour, y'all could have the VM version upwards and running in short order. Past the way, you can have 2 servers, and have a copy of the VM on both. This would give you lot even more business continuity, should something happen to the server.
• Save Legacy Systems– Offices and data centers frequently have an old box effectually that merely tin't be mucked with. There'southward additional software yous can apply to do what'south called a P2V switch, a physical-to-virtual conversion, where the old box's "image" gets copied onto the virtual auto files, and thus, gives you a hopefully-operational clone of the old granddad box in the corner.

This is on the techier cease of life hacking, I admit, just yous might exist able to glean some ideas from this that interpret to what you're doing in your own globe. And believe me, virtual machines do make your life easier, if yous have to work with lots of moving parts. I use the big daddy version of this software in our enterprise systems, and it's a lifesaver.

And not for nada, the people who Piece of work for VMWare (endemic past EMC), and who represent them in sales and in customer service, are actually nice and helpful. The community around the product is really adept. The documentation and forum support is good. This is a robust software you can really put to some good uses.

Download Squad is where I saw this first, so I'll give them the link. VMWare.com is where you get this software, but read Download Squad's thoughts first:

VMWare Server ane.0 Now Complimentary – [via Download Team]

–Chris Brogan has 16 years experience in telecommunications and wireless technologies. He attempts to forget about information technology from time to time past writing for Lifehack.org, and also at [chrisbrogan.com]. For whatever reason, he wants to be a podcaster when he grows up, and does that kind of stuff out of Grasshopper Factory.

hardenfiveraver.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifehack/7-uses-for-a-virtual-machine.html

Share this post