Shamil Salakhetdinov
shamil at smsconsulting.spb.ru
Mon Sep 21 08:44:14 CDT 2009
John, Thank you for your reply. As far as have read CITRIX HDX allows to work with VPC desktop even through browser and with Internet connection speed starting from 20kbps. CITRIX XenServer exists in free and commercial versions. CITRIX XenServer(?) allows to share VPC image between several running VPC instances - as far as I have read they somehow manage to keep virtual HDD data files created by different VPC instances separately but share VPC image - that's a rather useful feature for large VPC images. Also AFAIK Microsoft and CITRIX work very closely together on virtualization technologies. I have got WinXP SP3 VPC running on my Vista notebook under MS Virtual PC 2007 - and I have an impression/feeling (that's subjective of course) that it runs significantly quicker than under VMWare Player on the same notebook. Because of the above reasons I'm currently looking for CITRIX XenServer and CITRIX HDX experiences to find out are these technologies suitable for my "virtualization plan". <<< I am just guessing but I would say that the VM disk is empty and thus compresses well. I have to say I find it unbelievable that a VM with XP installed compresses down to 1/2 megabytes though. Something is logically wrong there. >>> John you can get IE8-XPSP3.exe from here: Free Windows XP Images to Download http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=21EABB90-958F-4B64- B5F1-73D0A413C8EF&displaylang=en it's 575MB - when unRARed it's 2.37GB - this is WinXP SP3 with .NET Framework 2/3/3.5 and IE8. And when this VPC started it informs that it has its virtual C: drive with 14.9GB in total and 12.5GB free (I have made some tunings/installs so it should have even more free space when started fresh out of the box). Thank you. -- Shamil -----Original Message----- From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 4:07 PM To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Virtual PC 2007 (MS), CITRIX XenServer, CITRIX HDX... Shamil, The machines run on my local server. I normally use a KVM switch to switch directly to the machine however it is possible to use Remote Desktop (my preference) or VNC (my second choice) to remote in to the VMs. Normally I remote in to the VM server machine and control the VM from there, however there is no reason remote desktop directly in to the VM itself shouldn't work. I haven't done that however. I use VMWare. I have installed a MS virtual machine and set it up but it seemed to be much slower than the VMWare machine. I never spent the time to find out why. > 5) I have started VPC and I see that its C: drive has 14.9GB in total and 12.5GB free. >>From the last info I assume that VPC can somehow expand virtual HDD when needed. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I am just guessing but I would say that the VM disk is empty and thus compresses well. I have to say I find it unbelievable that a VM with XP installed compresses down to 1/2 megabytes though. Something ls logically wrong there. In any event, in my case I have a full install with Windows 2003, Office, visual studio, The application I run, FoxFire etc etc. My install is about 15 gigs. It would be an interesting experiment to see how far that would compress but I suspect the best I'd get would be about 20% of original size, probably 30% would be more realistic. Thus the result would be at least 3 gigs or so. The size of the virtual disk shouldn't affect the total compressed size since mostly it is empty disk structure. > Still interested in CITRIX XenServer and CITRIX HDX experience stories. If you can "see" the VM (the IP or machine name) then why would you not use Remote Desktop to control the machine? It's free, fast and totally integrated into the OS. I use Hamachi to create a VPN into the machine, and then just use RD. Granted I have only done so to the server, but I would guess it would work just fine into the VMs as well. John W. Colby www.ColbyConsulting.com Shamil Salakhetdinov wrote: > Hi John, > > Thank you for your reply. > Do you have your three virtual machines running somewhere on a server > available to you via WAN/Internet? If yes, what "Virtual Desktop" program do > you use? > > About VPC file size - this is just an experiment here, not sure yet how it > works: > > 1) I have got installed MS Virtual PC 2007; > 2) I have got downloaded MS free trial Windows XP SP3 with IE8 image. Its > size is ~590KB and it's a .rar archive AFAIU; > 3) I have got unRARed this archive and its size (.vhd) is ~2.5GB; > 4) Using ~2.5 .vhd I created a VPC with 512MB; > 5) I have started VPC and I see that its C: drive has 14.9GB in total and > 12.5GB free. > >>From the last info I assume that VPC can somehow expand virtual HDD when > needed. Please correct me if I'm wrong. > > So I assume it shouldn't be a big issue to upload ~600MB-1GB RAR-ed VPC > image (I have a broadband Internet connection here). With VS installed (but > not MSDN and just selected SDK) the RAR-ed image size would be hopefully > around 2GB - it's not that big assuming I will not need to upload it every > day. > > Still interested in CITRIX XenServer and CITRIX HDX experience stories. > > Thank you. > > -- > Shamil > > -----Original Message----- > From: accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com > [mailto:accessd-bounces at databaseadvisors.com] On Behalf Of jwcolby > Sent: Monday, September 21, 2009 5:50 AM > To: Access Developers discussion and problem solving > Subject: Re: [AccessD] OT: Virtual PC 2007 (MS), CITRIX XenServer, CITRIX > HDX... > > Shamil, > > I do use virtual machines but they are for business purposes. Given a file > size of 40 gb they are > not exactly portable, certainly not something that could be directly > uploaded to a host on the > internet. > > I use these machines to run a specific software package for address > validation. I use three virtual > machines running simultaneously on a quad core server with 16 gigs ram. > Each vm is allocated 3.5 gb > of ram, which is required for the task it performs. Each vm runs the exact > same application, > against different data. The application they run can validate 2 million > records, start to finish, > in about 45 minutes, and I have situations where I have to validate many > millions of records, up to > 90 million at a shot. Obviously to have one machine do this would take two > full days. By having > three machines running I can (more or less) cut the time in 1/3, > realistically in 1/2. It would > really cut the time to 1/3rd except that I have to send files out over the > internet and get them > back. With upload speeds limited to 1/10th the download speeds, the > machines often fight for > bandwidth. However it is still much faster than simply running the software > on a single machine. > > So that is what I use them for. Not what you are looking for but that is my > only experience with > VMs. It is real life, used every week and often every day usage. > > John W. Colby > www.ColbyConsulting.com > > > Shamil Salakhetdinov wrote: >> Hi All, >> >> >> >> Sorry for off-topic but I expect the subject would be interesting for many >> developers here, and I do expect some of you do use such a configuration > of >> computers systems I'm considering here to create. >> >> >> >> Plan: >> >> >> >> I wanted to have: >> >> >> >> 1) Several virtual PCs (VPCs), which can be kept and loaded from a >> common local/Internet store with minimal overheads; >> >> 2) When loaded and started I wanted to access VPCs from real desktop > on >> PC they are running as well as via a virtual desktop from other systems >> running in my LAN as well as from Internet assuming my running VPCs will > be >> seen from there (I will get static IP(s) and my main ISP has a broadband >> connection to my home/office, which I'm using here every day ); >> >> 3) I also wanted the data from some of my VPCs/physical systems >> backed-up automatically (on schedule) not only locally but also somewhere > on >> Internet; >> >> 4) When out of home/office for a long period of time, and having my >> physical systems shut down I wanted to have (some of) my VPCs moved to an >> Internet VPS hosting to use them from anywhere in this world. >> >> >> >> As far I currently understand: >> >> >> >> (1) - can be done using CITRIX XenServer >> (http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=683148), > >> (2) - using CITRIX HDX technology >> (http://community.citrix.com/pages/viewpage.action?pageId=79463606), >> >> (3) - using e.g. Amazon S3 Services >> (http://aws.amazon.com/s3/#functionality ), and >> >> (4) - using e.g. Triple8 VPSs (http://www.triple8.net/vps.htm ) >> >> >> >> Question: Does anybody use/plan to use the above technologies in the near >> future? If you do use them what are your experience - I'm especially >> interested to hear about real life experience of using VS2005/2008/2010 >> development for Visual Studio running on an Internet-located VPS (Virtual >> Private Server), and accessed via Virtual Desktop (CITRIX HDX) from Web >> Browser. running on Windows Mobile powered SmartPhone J Well, I'm kidding >> about the latter "SmartPhone VS development" but I do wanted to know > about >> real life experience of using VS development via Virtual Desktop driven by >> CITRIX HDX. >> >> >> >> Please correct me if I'm wrong and advise what are the better technologies >> in your opinion to apply for and fulfill my plan. >> >> >> >> Thank you. >> >> >> >> -- >> >> Shamil >> -- AccessD mailing list AccessD at databaseadvisors.com http://databaseadvisors.com/mailman/listinfo/accessd Website: http://www.databaseadvisors.com __________ Information from ESET NOD32 Antivirus, version of virus signature database 4442 (20090921) __________ The message was checked by ESET NOD32 Antivirus. http://www.esetnod32.ru