Casual Discussion: Virtual Machines

[plcapps]

I'm confused as to what VMWare package to purchase. Does Player let you create VM's or do you need something else?

 

[plcapps]

I already use a dongle. Are the USB ports available to all VM's?

 

[Peter Nachtwey]

I already use a dongle. Are the USB ports available to all VM's?

Yes, but often you must chose whether the USB port is to be used by the host or by the VM. Often the VM software will remember your last configuration.


You are crazy not to use VMs.
VMs allow you to back up the entire environment. VMs are easy to restore if something goes wrong whereas configuring a machine from scratch takes all day.


backup, backup, backup.

 

[JesperMP]

I'm confused as to what VMWare package to purchase. Does Player let you create VM's or do you need something else?

Player does allow you to create VMs.

This site has a good write-up of the differences between Player and Pro:
https://www.vembu.com/blog/vmware-workstation-player-vs-vmware-workstation-pro/

edit: The pro features I use the most are the ability to run multiple VMs simultanously, and to take snapshots.

IMO, the price difference is so little, 149 USD vs 199 USD, that I would go for Pro.
NB. Player is only free for the non-comercial use.

 

[Jim3846]

I think a lot of remote support has gone to VMSphere type setup. load all your software at a certain operating system so that you can support it as time moves on. I have seen most companies I have seen move to this platform.

https://my.vmware.com/web/vmware/do...enter_cloud_infrastructure/vmware_vsphere/6_5

 

[Ozpeter]

Player does allow you to create VMs.

This site has a good write-up of the differences between Player and Pro:
https://www.vembu.com/blog/vmware-workstation-player-vs-vmware-workstation-pro/

edit: The pro features I use the most are the ability to run multiple VMs simultanously, and to take snapshots.

IMO, the price difference is so little, 149 USD vs 199 USD, that I would go for Pro.
NB. Player is only free for the non-comercial use.

Years ago I used to run VM workstation Pro*, but at the time I decided that $199 was an expense that I couldn't justify, so I switched to VirtualBox. At the time VBox didn't have all of the nice bells and whistles that VMWare had, but I wasn't using all of those feature anyway. I've been happily running VBox since then and would only consider VMWare for a corporate VM server situation.

---

* I got into VMs because one day a client asked me to take a look at a CIMPLICITY HMI project of theirs. I didn't have CIMPLICITY system installed on my laptop, so I just went to install it (as I'd never had any trouble with CIMPLICITY previously). The installation failed and took out Drive C: of my laptop. Lesson learnt. Never do anything that could harm a working system!

 

[kalabdel]

Heh.


It worked fine for a while*, but recently RSLogix causes the VM to crash. No issues with any other Windows apps.

About three weeks ago or so all the vitrual machines I use most often, one has TIA16 and one has CodeSys and a few other software, have crashed so many times I couldn't do any work.
Then they crashed less frequently but still crashed.

When they crashed, they crashed the host as well, the the laptop just froze completely and had to shut it down via power button. I'm quite convinced it's wither VirtualBox issue or my laptop is on the way out; just a hunch (or paranoia).

I have a bad habit of updating VirtualBox every-time a new version comes out and I decided to not do that anymore. Once I have a version that's working well I will not update it.

 

[JesperMP]

Have not had a VMware crash in years.

Only issue I have some times is that VMware says "already in use" when starting up. Seems to have to do with improper shutting down even if I always shut down in an orderly manner. A reboot of the host always fixes it.

 

[JZerb]

I run a Windows 10 host on a 500gb ssd. I have another SSD that stores the active VMs that Im currently running. Then I have another SSD that stores all of my VM backups. I have all of my Rockwell software in a Windows Server 2012 R2 guest.

One VM is my license server, there I have all of my Rockwell licenses installed onto.
One VM I have Studio 5000 and RS500
One VM I have CCW

You need to have the license VM running while using either of the other two VMs, but that's not the worst thing in the world. What this allows you to do is say have one VM with Studio 5000 vXXX and another VM with Studio 5000 vXXX that may not play nice with one another for one reason or another. You just need to point the VM with the Rockwell software installed on it to look at the license server VM in Factorytalk Activation so everything works as it should. Its by far the best way to do it that I have found.

Purchase a Windows Server 2012 R2 license, purchase VMWare Workstation pro, setup a clean Server 2012 R2 VM and once done copy it somewhere safe for future use. Then just copy and clone that original VM and install what I said above onto it.

Hope that helps.

we use vm ware on all our pc's for ab plc software, hmi panels, drive executive.
its windows 7 pro, 32 and 64 bit
we use xp pro for older software.

The issue you will be facing with a lot of software is the license key.
you will need an ab key for all packages you put on the vm's.
the license is tied to various vm serial numbers, cpu, hard drive, ip port....

hope this helps,
james

 

[harryting]

Any particular reason to use Server OS for guest? I think Server Standard license allows 2 concurrent VM.

Disclaimer: yes, I know I'm interpreting the license requirement by the letter but I do work in a industry where we are audited for things like that.

 

[JZerb]

Any particular reason to use Server OS for guest? I think Server Standard license allows 2 concurrent VM.

Disclaimer: yes, I know I'm interpreting the license requirement by the letter but I do work in a industry where we are audited for things like that.

Its been my personal experience that the Server OS runs the smoothest with Rockwells software. Any of my Windows 7 guests that I have ever used end up slowing down after time and giving me problems, any of my Server guests don't seem to ever have that problem.

 

[Nova5]

You will have the additional cost of a OS license and a Factorytalk License for every single VM. You could have the VM look to the host system for FTV license to alleviate that cost.

A previous employer pretty much gives MS and Rockwell the middle finger with their VM. hundreds of techs use a copy of a single VM to manipulate FTV files on their local terminals when they are not on the HMI team... mostly to keep FTV from loading down the PLC techs laptops with unneeded resource suckers. But they do not maintain licenses for every single VM. all use the same Windows key or Node locked license for their VMs. Me.. I fixed the latter on mine by pairing up two virtual network cards into their own private mini-lan so the VM looked to the Host for its licenses.

 

[JaxGTO]

Interesting idea. If the machines are going to be used for just PLC/HMI development then use a Windows 10 LTSC machine. I use them a lot. License is only $4 on eBay and the machines takes less then 20G on the hard drive. You can also get them 32 or 64 bit. And being LTSC you can turn off automatic updates so it wont crash your software.
You could even put the project on a jump drive (USB 3.0) and only plug it in when needed. Or FedEx an emergency copy to someone.