virtualizing XP under Linux and remote IE testing

[tbs-Gb/NUjX2UK8 at public.gmane.org (theBlueSage)]

On Thu, 2010-01-21 at 15:08 +0000, jay-R5TnC2l8y5lBDgjK7y7TUQ at public.gmane.org wrote:
> I believe vmware server would make a difference.  Xen is great for unix servers, but vmware server is designed for your situation.  The modified kernels and other optimizations that vmware can offer should beat out xen, for running xp.  If open source is the goal you could try virtual box, but you'll still have issues if the problems lie in rdp.
> 

I have done side-by-side comparisons on this, xen -vs- virtualbox -vs-
vmware server, and I hate to admit it but vmware-server ran rings around
the rest. I was running 5 virtual machines simultaneously and needed
then to all allow 'as needed' disk allocation growth (running a
mysql-cluster in the vm for node failover testing). vmware server prove
the most efficient, the most manageable, and the easiest to reconfigure
on the fly. IT may not be the same as you running 32 windows XP virtual
machines, but pound for pound the vmware-server out performed everything
else. 
I will say though that its 'hypervisor' attempt ( a web browser based
management interface for the vm server) is pretty clunky, and was
obviously written by geeks for geeks with no attempt to make it look
good. However, it is functional and I suspect that is all they cared
about.

Richard



> ------Original Message------
> From: Ryan Pugatch
> Sender: discuss-bounces-mNDKBlG2WHs at public.gmane.org
> To: Ryan Pugatch
> To: BLU
> Subject: Re: virtualizing XP under Linux and remote IE testing
> Sent: Jan 21, 2010 9:42 AM
> 
> Dan Ritter wrote:
> > 
> > 32 XP VMs on one machine. Hrm. How many CPUs does the host have?
> > How are the CPU loads? What kind of disk system? How are the I/O loads?
> > How much RAM? Is there any swapping?
> > 
> > Half of my devs use Macs, and half use Linux; when we need to test IE,
> > we either walk over to Windows desktops that don't do anything else or
> > VNC into them. We don't need 32 of them, though.
> > 
> > -dsr-
> > 
> 
> 
> The box has two quad core cpus and 32GB RAM.  I/O and RAM is fine.  Xen 
> is not performing well and chews up CPU.  That is definitely an issue.
> 
> We're too large to just have a few desktops scattered around, unfortunately.
> 
> To answer other questions, we can't use WINE or Crossover nor can we use 
> any of those other solutions as we're required to test true IE under XP.
> 
> VMWare has been something I have been thinking of trying.  We definitely 
> want to avoid having to run the VMs locally, though.
> 
> Thanks,
> Ryan
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