[sf-lug] "Slightly to the side" observations about virtualization

[RBV]

A thread titled "License count != software popularity" caught my eye because
it contained some comments about virtualization  For example:

>>> You know, I have been going on about how great virtualization is lately.

>>   I forget. what do you like about virtualization? for whom is
>> its various benefits great?
> 
>>> I use vserver, which is extremely easy for Linux to do.  It's basically

In my case, I use the free VMware Server program to run a Windows 2000 Pro
virtual machine under Ubuntu Linux.

VMware thus enables me to run my last few "must have" Windows programs.  In
my case these are Adobe FrameMaker (NO! -- Adobe trialled and dropped its
Linux version of FrameMaker several years ago), Adobe Acrobat, and Quadralay
ePublisher Pro.  I thus get the benefits of an intrinsically fast, secure,
highly configurable Linux computer AND the use of the Windows-based tools I
need to put food on the table.

But my usage model may provide something greater than a single user's
ability to use some essential Windows programs: It may offer a more
palatable migration path to larger commercial users of Windows-based
distributed applications.

Various vertically integrated industries such as travel, banking, and health
care services today run massive, incredibly complex, distributed Windows
applications.  These complex installed applications simply cannot be "flash
cut" to a non-Windows infrastructure.

Desktop virtualization may, however, provide a manageable migration path for
 industries (or subsets thereof) looking for a way to avoid, say, a
mandatory migration to Vista.

I offer this up for the forum's amusement because as desktop Linux becomes
ever more usable it may make sense to think about ways that nervous Windows
users -- at either the retail or wholesale levels -- can have their
anxieties, not to mention their technical needs, assuaged by a
virtualization-enabled migration...

Cheers,
Riley
SFO