Windows 8

[mekender]

Oh, and this should let people know what I think of Windows 8- I just recently bought a Windows 7 upgrade license (to upgrade my XP license). My Windows VM is now 7, not XP.

Got my laptop re-imaged from Vista to 7 recently. I could deal with Vista. I find I enjoy 7. So I switched at home, too. Might as well, XP is EOL. I have fully licensed copies of Office 2003 and 2010 to go along (every time I see an offer for the $10 Office@home thing through my employer, it's a no-brainer).

IMO the best part of 8 is that Hyper-V is built into the OS and you can run unlimited VMs native to the OS... No more paying for VMWare.

Now to most non-techies that does not matter one bit but for me it is a home run!

[mekender]

3. Hyper-V gives me the most efficient way of doing all three, for WINDOWS ONLY, basically for free (either included in the enterprise licensing of my server and desktop products; or for a nominal per seat fee). Hyper-V is technically multiplatform, but it has some serious weaknesses for anything other than the windows platform, along with major support issues.

What support issues?

I ask because that is what I did for MS, Enterprise support for Hyper-V.

[Greg]

4. I use OracleVM because Oracle essentially forces you to for certain software, through their support and licensing terms for virtual platforms. In general, I prefer to rip out the oracle software in question, rather than use OracleVM (or move to a non-virtual platform). Oh and Oracle should die in a fire.

Is it just me, or is the naming/branding for this stuff as much of a retconning fraud as I think?

Because I use Solaris LDOMs in my environment, which now seems to be called Oracle VM Server for SPARC. Which is quite a different beast from OracleVM, the Xen-based product for Linux.

Anyway, LDOMs have their own problems and on the whole I don't care for them.

[blackeagle603]

Quote:
So I keep looking and hoping just one more cute, available girl will show up to the dance and not turn out to be another Lindsey Lohan.


It doesn't work like that.

...and so eventually we go home early to watch Star Trek reruns and dream of a Unix wireless world.

[Yogimus]

My computer is a video game/porn box, that I hotswap hardware in. (Video cards/ram/drives) Windows lets me do this with no drama.

[cu74]

VDI; SPARC; LDOM; LSMFT; whatever. For semi-Luddites like me, does all of this mean WIN-8 is merely a more up-to-date VISTA, (i.e. another POS to stay away from)?

[Rich]

My computer is a video game/porn box, that I hotswap hardware in. (Video cards/ram/drives) Windows lets me do this with no drama.

My computer is a [strike]video game/porn box[/strike] tower, that I hotswap hardware in. (Mobo/CPU/Video cards/ram/drives) [strike]Windows[/strike] Linux lets me do this with no drama.

Fixed it to work for me.

[Rich]

I just can't resist adding THIS


Enjoy!

[mekender]

3. Hyper-V gives me the most efficient way of doing all three, for WINDOWS ONLY, basically for free (either included in the enterprise licensing of my server and desktop products; or for a nominal per seat fee). Hyper-V is technically multiplatform, but it has some serious weaknesses for anything other than the windows platform, along with major support issues.

What support issues?

I ask because that is what I did for MS, Enterprise support for Hyper-V.

Getting MS to support third party software with Hyper-V and getting third parties to support software on Hyper-V VMs; particularly non-windows VMs (in both cases).

I am not sure that would be any different than expecting IBM to provide support for the MS software on their blade... or expecting MS to provide support for the IBM blade hardware that the software runs on.

By "support" i mean someone that will answer your call and help you, not "will it work"... Our stance with non-MS VMs was that we would support the Hyper-V host and the fail over of the VM but it did not matter what the OS was on the VM, we did not care.

Also, last year they did publish compatibility tools for SCVMM and Linux so there is that...

[Greg]

Getting MS to support third party software with Hyper-V and getting third parties to support software on Hyper-V VMs; particularly non-windows VMs (in both cases).

I am not sure that would be any different than expecting IBM to provide support for the MS software on their blade... or expecting MS to provide support for the IBM blade hardware that the software runs on.

By "support" i mean someone that will answer your call and help you, not "will it work"... Our stance with non-MS VMs was that we would support the Hyper-V host and the fail over of the VM but it did not matter what the OS was on the VM, we did not care.

Also, last year they did publish compatibility tools for SCVMM and Linux so there is that...

Yes... and when you certify that a particular revision of Linux will run, and it won't, then MS and RedHat just toss it back and forth between each other.

And of course, getting third parties to certify that their application will properly run on a Hyper-V VM... And again, when there IS a problem, MS and the vendor play badminton with the problem.

To make this more clear, from the perspective of someone who works in Operations and is responsible for making this shit run so it'll make you money....

When a company sells any kind of 'platform' (same is true of enabling/supporting products) and a customer counts on something to run on that platform, but it doesn't... in such a way that it exposes a bug/flaw in the platform, that platform vendor NEEDS to step up and issue a patch. Or feel wrath.

The company I work for is one of the largest tech companies in the world, but they're a nobody with no pull compared with the client I'm assigned to. We actually get support from Symantec. As in patches. (Yes, this is impossible. I know. We had such an intimate relationship that they poached one of our best people.) That's how it's supposed to work.

And it works in the other way, too. When an app is supposed to run on a certain platform and it doesn't and the problem is with the app, that app vendor NEEDS to provide support. Note, they're not supporting the platform, they're fixing the behavior of their app so it plays properly with the platform.

Yeah, the easiest to fall into/most common failure mode is probably the 'it's not *our* fault' hot potato dance.