Quote:
Mark, as soon as I can snag some hardware I'll be doing that so that I can get a better idea of how my group can use it. But mean time can you tell me what cool things I can do in a server-client set up? and what fun things I should look out for.


Well, the basic stuff is you can run MANY virtual machines on top of one real machine, and none of them have to be using the same 100% unmodified O/S or O/S version as any of the others. That in itself is cool.

It's incredibly easy to set up, networking is instant and totally transparent, as is printing and most other stuff. The "vmware toolbox" is normally installed in the "guest" systems to help speed up the interface (replaces video/mouse drivers, and adds a few hooks for other stuff).

A virtual machine can be saved in "snapshot" form, and can then be reverted back to the saved snapshot at *any* point in the future, or automatically on any "reboot". A virtual machine can also be suspended/resumed without its consent or even its knowledge. Again, very cool.

Virtual machines can use real disks, or either sparse or full-sized virtual disks, on virtual IDE and/or SCSI "hardware". Optical drives can map to the real thing, or to ISO image files (way cool). Direct or emulated access for printer ports is there, as is virtual machine access to real USB devices.

And all of that is just the "Workstation" version. The server editions go beyond that, and make managing large numbers of virtual machines even simpler.

Cheers