Geoff,

> Leyne, Sean wrote:
> > For my point of view, no you wouldn't -- using a VM solution
> > would mean that you would care very little about the host OS.
>
> And then goes on, in another email, to say:
> > What version of VMWare was installed GSX (Free) or ESX v3.5
> > or ESX v4.0 (AKA Sphere)?
> >
> > The specific version *does* matter.
>
> and later again to say:
> > That is the GSX/*Free* version... _Not_ VMWare best product*
> >
> > I used it to host the Firebird web and tracker VM and it was
> > a *dog*.
> >
> > We use VMWare 3.5 on 2 hosts in the office and performance is
> > *very good*.
> >
> > I have also used Sun's Virtualbox solution it is also good --
> > a little poorer on the disk IO side.
>
> I am something of a fan of virtual machines, having used them
> for many years to aid development/testing etc. But the simple
> truth is that you cannot (yet) claim that using VMs means you
> dont have to care about the host OS. You have seen this for
> yourself.

I general I agree, but I think the issue depends on the nature of the application.

It was my understanding, perhaps incorrect, that Lester's application that doesn't need much CPU or HDD performance -- his main problem is trying to simplify the deployment of his application across a board range of client hardware and OS.

In that case, a VM based application can work pretty effectively, without much regard for the host configuration.

> The need to use a hypervisor to get better performance for
> servers reduces the attraction of deploying applications by
> VM. The clients receiving the deployment must already be
> prepared to use (or already using) hypervisors to have the
> necessary infrastructure to manage them.

I don't think that the management of VMs is a real problem for kiosk based deployments (I don't think that a VIA ITX or Intel Atom CPUs should really be used for anything else).

For applications which are expected to co-exist on a centralized VM infrastructure, then management tools are certainly required.


Sean