I’ve been using virtual machine technology for many years, and today I think I would be hard pressed to live without it. Since I test many different software packages, operating systems, environments and try out and test different systems. Without virtual machine technology this would be very difficult, with it, it’s incredibly easy. <\/p>\n\t
I use lots of different types of virtual machine technology - I have a permanent Windows Server 2003\/Microsoft Virtual Server installation that runs six different operating systems which I use as my ’sandbox’ - I have a second a Windows Server 2003 installation, Gentoo, NetBSD, Fedora, CentOS, Solaris 11 and Windows XP. I then also have a number of ‘pre-configured’ VMs which I can execute on a desktop VirtualPC solution when I need to. In addition some some standard environments, I also have specific applications sets - for example a Rational development platform for my IBM work, and a test environment for mail servers (for SPAM\/Virus removal). <\/p>\n\t
On a Linux desktop, I VMware to play with Linux environments, and a Sun Ultra 60 enables me to play with Solaris Zones.<\/p>\n\t
All of them have their advantages, and their disadvantages and problems. <\/p>\n\t
Originally I was going to cover all of this in a book, but I decided the scope (and long term usability) of the book format were not really suitable for an area of computing which is constantly evolving, so I created this website. <\/p>\n\t
It’s early stages yet - and I still have to map out the content of the site beyond my original book plan - but stay tuned, and we’ll start looking at virtual computing in more detail soon. <\/p>\n\t