Virtual PC on domain controllers - ask the audience

[ajbritton]

It would be useful from a remote support point of view to have a copy of Virtual PC on a server at each site that I support. That way I could remote into the server and fire up a virtual workstation to test configuration and client software issues.

 

I notice that the VMWare player (which would have been a nice free way to do it) warns against installing on domain controllers.

 

Does anyone know a good reason why I should not install Virtual PC (the trial has installed and appears to be working) or even VMWare player. What issues might this cause?

 

Thanks in advance,

[apeo]

Not played with the latest version of vmware but as a virtual machine it can take up quite alot of system resources, which you dont really want on a DC. I imagine that would be the reason not to install.

[DMcCoy]

If I abosolutley had to do it I would use the free vmware server. You need to be very careful with adaptor binding orders too.

[Mitch]

Aulthough the idea in principle is an excellent one, and would benifit you aj tremendously and i can see where your coming from, the the resources, stability, and secuity of the network could be compromised significantly.

[ajbritton]

Thanks to everyone for there contributions thus far.

 

Surely (at least some) these products are designed to work on servers for application consolidation and such like. If you read the blurb on the VMWare free server thing, it talks about using it to provision servers and quickly move servers from one platform to another. Where I work, and very large IT company came in to talk to us about consolidation. They proposed moving the entire organisation (several thousand users) to a thin client architecture and using virtualisation software to mop up all the applications that would not run in a thin client environment.

 

Just to be clear, I'm only talking about using this occasionaly, not 24-7. If a user at the site reported an application problem or a workstation configration problem, I would remote into the server, fire up a virtual PC (at which point, I grant you it will grab some RAM and CPU cycles), sort out the problem, then shut down the virtual PC and disconnect. I know that Virtual PC installs some extra network components so it can hook into the network, but would these have much of an impact when not in use?

 

Thanks again y'all

[NetworkGeezer]

I think the idea is that DC runs in the VM not the DC hosting the VM.

[CyberNerd]

I use VMWare a lot here, main problems I find with performance are disk writes which can be intensive and slow the host. I turn off screen saver on the guest OS and (sometimes) have the guest not using the scratch disk so everything is in memory not really sure if this is much benefit but I'm sure I read it somewhere.

 

Also beware of kernel upgrades to the host - you'll need to recompile vmware each time the kernel is upgraded.

 

I wouldn't run vm on a DC though, run the DC as the guest.

[Geoff]

Um, there's a version of VMware server for Linux. Why not cobble a spare machine together out of bits and use that?

[ajbritton]

@Geoff: I support approx 140 systems!

[Geoff]

Your point?

[ajbritton]

Your point?

is that it might be a bit tedious to cobble together 140 linux boxes!

[Geoff]

Ah I see. Got the wrong end of the stick there.

 

Why not have a test setup at your main site with 140 images?

[ajbritton]

Ah I see. Got the wrong end of the stick there.

 

Why not have a test setup at your main site with 140 images?

 

Thanks Geoff!

[ajbritton]

Aulthough the idea in principle is an excellent one, and would benifit you aj tremendously and i can see where your coming from, the the resources, stability, and secuity of the network could be compromised significantly.

 

I can see how the Virtual PC would use up some RAM when acutally in use, but can you tell me how just having the program installed but not active would affect the stability and security of the network?

[Dos_Box]

What you need is Virtual Server, not Virtual PC. As VS is web based you simple have to login to a web site, and not some kind of remote session, and operate your chosed virtual machine from IE. Virtual Server runs Virtual PC images, but is optemised for operating from servers. VMWare Virtal Server is slow and clunky at the moment. I've been trialiing it and I'm afraid to say that the Microsoft solution is currently best for this, although the VMWare product is still in beta.

[ajbritton]

Once again, thanks for everyone's input. It's interesting to hear the variety of experiences and opinions on offer.

 

In summary it looks like running Virtual PC on a server would have a resource impact when in use (CPU, RAM and DISK) and is perhaps not the optimal product to run on a server.

 

I only want to use Virtual PC very occasionaly for remote troubleshooting purposes. I already have RDP access to all the servers I support. As the servers are routinely upgraded and they will likely get 2Gb RAM, dual CPU and RAID 5 disk arrays at their next upgrade, I'm sure they can take the occasional resource hit although the customer may notice a slight drop in performance, but they will get problems fixed more quickly and would not lose access to a PC whilst work was carried out.

 

Educational price of Virtual PC is negligable (~£30 inc media) when combined with the cost of a new server. I've been using Virtual PC for several years now (since before Microsoft bought it from Connectix) and have never known it to crash the host PC even when I've had 3 or 4 guest sessions running.