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Its true what they say, history does repeat itself! I don't see how virtualization is much different from a dummy terminal connected to a mainframe. I'd hate to see an entire computer lab go down should the network fail. The only real promise is for making web development and server management easier. Vmware is looking to make thing easier with CloudFoundry http://cloudfoundry.org/ along with Activestate and Stackato http://www.activestate.com/cloud I definitely want to take those two out for a test run. Deployment looks dead simple. Juan Madrigal Web Developer Web and Emerging Technologies University of Miami Richter Library On 7/11/11 10:38 AM, "Nate Vack" <[log in to unmask]> wrote: >On Sun, Jul 10, 2011 at 9:46 AM, Karen Schneider <[log in to unmask]> >wrote: > >> My down-home-country-librarian observation that I always tack on (with >> plenty of disclaimers) is "If virtualization were the answer, we'd see >>more >> of it by now." > >This. > >Various vendors have been pushing the "run all your desktops in the >server room and export your I/O over ethernet" solution for a long >time. Heck, X11 does exactly this, and it's as old as the original >Macintosh. > >I suspect the problems partly come down to the end-user experience >(performance, customizability, etc) and partly the fact that making an >environment truly truly homogeneous is not completely realistic in >most environments. Once you've gone the "everything will be >virtualized" route, making one desktop setup just a little different >(adding custom hardware, etc) is nearly impossible. > >So it winds up making more sense to find a solution that lets you >cost-effectively manage lots of desktops, because that solves your >actual business needs, not what IT wishes your business needs were. > >That, and the fact that the parts of desktop hardware that usually >fail tend to be the things people spend time touching with their dirty >fingers and pouring their coffee on. Disks and motherboards do fail, >but if you've done your homework right, you should be able to swap >another one in within minutes -- and thin clients can fail, too. So >virtualizing doesn't get you out of the business of heading out to >replace gear. > >And desktop PCs are dead cheap and you can buy them from anyone. >Custom virtual solutions usually want you to source from one vendor. > >That said: we do love virtualization for delivering Windows apps to >Macs and Linux clients. Sometimes, there's just no substitute for SPSS >on Windows. > >-n