VM on a stick

In another thread, they mentioned about using a VM on a different laptop. Could you set up a VM with everything but a software license? Doen't it still have to know what hardware it is being hooked up to? That would be real nice having studio, RSLogix 500,etc, already to go. Just supply a license.

George

That's what we do in my company; there's an external HDD with the control systems VM on it that I maintain (snapshots, installs, revisions, etc).

Because we use Rockwell Automation extensively, the host machine gets RSLinx Classic and the FactoryTalk Activation Manager. We activate the Toolkit against the host's hard disk ID.

There are three things that make this work well:

1. We have a 5-seat Toolkit, so all of our activations are Concurrent type. This means the VM can borrow them from the host, so the activation isn't tied to the VM and can't be "lost" with the VM.

2. I set up a "host only" private network between the VM and the host that is used only by FT Activation Manager and by the RSLinx Classic Gateway driver.

3. Any non-Ethernet RSLinx Classic driver is configured on the host, and connected using the RSLinx Gateway function. We have the Gateway because we have the Toolkit. This avoids any VMWare serial or USB forwarding/converting/connecting issues.

This recently came in extremely handy when a machine we built five years ago took an electrical surge (across the ocean) and blew up a few servo drives that aren't available anymore. The original engineer wasn't available to work on it, but his VM was archived and I was able to pull it out and had access to all the five-year-old software and program files. That saved us a couple of critical days finding and installing and testing obsolete software.

An addendum: I've never found an external drive connection fast enough to run a VM. I would consider attempting eSATA or USB 3.0 but USB 2.0 just doesn't do it.

Ken,
So does this mean, some company could set up VM's for a fee, and you could just supply a license? You would need the ability to change like IP address or com port? with all the headaches of setting up software, this would seem the way to go if possible.
Thanks
George

Ken Roach said:

An addendum: I've never found an external drive connection fast enough to run a VM. I would consider attempting eSATA or USB 3.0 but USB 2.0 just doesn't do it.

Click to expand...

Exactly

I was looking more at it being like a Mac where you can copy a folder from 1 computer to another and it works. Then you just add the license. Which would only have to be done once.
Thanks
George

Ken Roach said:

An addendum: I've never found an external drive connection fast enough to run a VM. I would consider attempting eSATA or USB 3.0 but USB 2.0 just doesn't do it.

Click to expand...

Ken

Here is a solution.
http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/products/external/external-hard-drive/portable-hard-drive

I have several of these and run very heavily loaded VM's from them. The Drives have cables that can be changed from USB 2.0, USB 3.0, Esata, Firewire 800 all on the same drive. Just buy the cable you want.

I am running the 1.5 TB models

George - think of a VM just like a physical PC. Everything is stored in a few (large) files, though. The hardware is dealt with simpler, generic drivers. For example, the virtual machine sees, and interacts with, a "simple" controller for the hard drive, video card, etc.

You can easily install or not install whatever you want. Just like any other PC.

George Graziano said:

In another thread, they mentioned about using a VM on a different laptop. Could you set up a VM with everything but a software license? Doen't it still have to know what hardware it is being hooked up to? That would be real nice having studio, RSLogix 500,etc, already to go. Just supply a license.

Click to expand...

Thanks Nathan. My question is then, could someone "sell" a VM file for RSlogix 500 to a person that owns a license? That person would then activate it on his laptop. With all the headaches people have with PLC software interactions, wouldn't this be the way to go? I don't necessarily have the time to learn to set up VMware right now.
Thanks
George

PLC Kid: Thanks ! I wander through Frys ever once in a while and ask the same question but never saw something like that.

I'm going to buy one and check it out on the USB/eSATA port on my Dell Precision M4500.

Ken

I really like the fact that if you have all the cable flavors that you can connect it to most any machine.

Most modern machines are bound to have one of those standards.

Because of the small pocket size any universal connection I use them to backup servers (moved from tape)in a grandfather/father/Son Config.

Hi George,

There would be multiple license issues involved, mainly methinks Microsoft. Each VM sold would need to have it's own unique key. You probably won't have any issues with RS since you can download it anyhow and require the customer to put in their own license to activate.

If you can work through the MS legal issue, I don't see any reason you couldn't sell somebody a complete virtual appliance (VMware's name for this sort of thing).

TM

Tim,

Thanks, I guess I have some more weekend work then to create my own.

George

Not having used anything other than the virtual XP built into Win7, I am curious what hoops you need to jump through to activate the MS operating system. Is it activating itself based on pseudo hardware settings in the VM instead of the hardware of the device you were running the VM on at the time you activated the OS?