Virtual Machines and AntiVirus

[DamianInRochester]

IMO It depends.

How do you plan to do your activation? Are you locking them to the guest or the host?

Here is what I typically do.

I install my activations to the guest so in the VM itself and do so with a blank VM and then build it up from there with snap shots. I install each package then reboot then snapshot then instal another title and I try to group revs together by major rev or CPR number.

Like with FTview SE in the same VM I have several snapshots with different versions of FT View SE from 5.0,5.10.6.00 etc

I also have different machines from major vendors like siemens, rockwell, Omron, etc and then have version snaphots in each machine.

You can do some intense things with snapshot branching.

You can make a snapshot per customer if you want and if you have open liscense for the OS you can roll that snapshot only to it's own machine if the need ever comes like giving it to a co worker to go service a customer that you normally deal with etc.

Again it depends on your needs really and the size of your company and you customer base and the types of industry or industries you work in.and also the types of storage and OS license structure you have etc.

Kinda like your desktop pc no 2 people normally have the same setup and config it is a little or a lot custom based on their needs.

A question only you can really answer

P.S. if you are getting into this I will give you some good advice backup that VM often to a NAS or server or something and If budget allows something like Veeam which will do accurate inremental and reverse incremental bacvkups of VM's is a lifesaver and will make things easy for you to keep your data safe.

I recommend a daily incremental where possible and a weekly full and I would retain no less than 3 fulls if possible to be really safe IMO.

I was looking more along the lines of if there are any known conflicts that are created if one is installed before the other.

In XP mode I was never able to get factory talk activation to work properly. I think I would like to keep the activations in the VM. I know many do a client/server thing. I really don't know. It is one of those things where I just want it to work, so I can do the parts of my job that I really need to be doing. I have almost a full week into a fresh install of windows on my PC and setting up all the new software again. I really want to get it right this time.

I have been having some difficulty with VMware. It crashes when I attempt to make a clone. I resorted to copying and renaming them. I haven't even began to explore the snapshot thing. Your post definitely gives me a lot to think about. The way you're using the snapshots sounds pretty powerful. I am tempted to experiment with it a bit just so I understand better how it works before I go further. I am not certain I understand the ramifications of "Snapshots" as opposed to "Clones". I'm still very green when it comes to VMs and even more so with VMware.

The "Backing Up" thing is actually one of the major reasons I am making the transition from XPMode to VMWare. The XPMode files are scattered all over and it takes way too long to back up my VM's. I am really trying to organize things such that backing up will be a breeze. As for budget, I am willing to spend whatever I need to make myself more efficient and save time. I just got a nice large (for me anyhow) network drive that I will be backing everything up to from now on. I will definitely look into Veeam.

I wish I had the knowledge you do about all this stuff before I start building it all. I appreciate the time you have taken, It has definitely been a help in both pointing me in the right direction and also helping make me aware of things that I have been oblivious to.

Thanks again!

D

 

[DamianInRochester]

This is the thread I started on the VMware forum for anyone who might be experiencing the same issues with cloning that I am.

http://communities.vmware.com/thread/408861

 

[bornwild]

Sorry for hihacking this but does vm slow down the system. I was thinking of installing this is on my desktop so that i run rockwell stuff at my home pc.

 

[Dravik]

When running a VM it consumes a decent amount of cpu/ram based on what you allocate to the VM. When not running, nope.

 

[The Plc Kid]

Damian

This blog post http://blogs.vmware.com/workstation/2009/11/free-vmware-workstation-7-fundamentals-course.html

Leads to a free course by VM Ware on workstation 7. I had several of my guys do it and it helped them with the basics and it is free. Just have to register but if you are posting in the VM Ware forum then you have already registered. You could prolly do this course ina day and it will help a lot.

It should still work I know that it did as november 2011.

Also are you using workstation 7 or 8? I have found 8 to still be a littl buggy for me. I run it in my test lab setup but for working I am still using 7 as it is pretty rock solid.

 

[DamianInRochester]

Kid,
Yeah, I went straight to Workstation 8. I am running the latest of everything. I have had quite a few problems so far. Most I have been able to struggle through with the help of google. Had I realized this a week ago I would have definitely went with v7. I am sure it is probably too late to revert and still be able to use the VMs I have already created.

I will have to schedule myself a day to set back and watch the course. I am sure it is one of those things that will save me the time back tenfold.

Thanks,
D

 

[The Plc Kid]

Damain

Here is a good link on the details of clones and it is more than I can type here so try this link
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_clone_overview.html

As a rule I really don't bother with linked clones because of they are dependant on the parent clone and IMO it is just a lot to keep track of and keep organized.

I would go for full clones if your OS liscensing permits or if you just don't care on the OS liscense part.

When you do a clone it gives it a new MAC ID and you will also want to change the computer name domain or workgroup.

 

[The Plc Kid]

You can always go th the VM Ware site and downgrade you liscense key to 7 but the VM's may not be compatible. I have never tried it but it may work.

 

[The Plc Kid]

I assume you are using a laptop machine? Do you happen to have dual hard drives? If so you VM's wil work better if they are on a physically seperate drive from the OS partitioning won't make much difference and make sure you are allocating enough ram to the VM. These are also things to consider when you do a laptop upgrade.

I run dell M6500 laptops with dual SSD drives and 12 GB of memory with the VM's on the second drive and they are lightning fast.

 

[DamianInRochester]

Damain

Here is a good link on the details of clones and it is more than I can type here so try this link
http://www.vmware.com/support/ws55/doc/ws_clone_overview.html

As a rule I really don't bother with linked clones because of they are dependant on the parent clone and IMO it is just a lot to keep track of and keep organized.

I would go for full clones if your OS liscensing permits or if you just don't care on the OS liscense part.

When you do a clone it gives it a new MAC ID and you will also want to change the computer name domain or workgroup.

Yeah, I was going to do full clones. VMWare crashes when I try to make one, so I resorted to copying the files and then renaming in Workstation. Hopefully someone the VMWare Forum will be able to help me resolve the clone crashing issue.

 

[DamianInRochester]

I assume you are using a laptop machine? Do you happen to have dual hard drives? If so you VM's wil work better if they are on a physically seperate drive from the OS partitioning won't make much difference and make sure you are allocating enough ram to the VM. These are also things to consider when you do a laptop upgrade.

I run dell M6500 laptops with dual SSD drives and 12 GB of memory with the VM's on the second drive and they are lightning fast.

I do have dual harddrives. What got this all started was that my primary drive was almost full, so I got in a new 480GB Sandisk SSD Extreme. My other drive is a 7200 RPM HD that I use for mass storage. Based on what you are saying, I would probably be better to move my old SSD into bay two and put all my VMs on that. It makes sense what you are saying because I know that allows the PC to access the host's hard drive at the same time the Guest can access the secondary drive. Wish I though that out better!

I have not changed the VM ram usage from whatever it defaults to. So far speed wise things are still pretty snappy in both the host and the VMs.

What a coincidence, mine is an M6500 as well. Running Win7 Ult 64bit on the host. I upgraded to 32GB Ram last month. Going through all the re-install nonsense i discovered I had two USB3.0 capable ports that I wasn't aware of. For some reason it was not on the specs when i bought it and they had disabled it in the BIOS. So far I have been really happy with the re-install. The only thing that has been a pain is VMWorkstation.

I love the M6500. The thing is a beast. People usually shake their heads when they see the size of the power adapter. They should come with an air conditioner though!

 

[The Plc Kid]

Ok so that changes the game a little bit. You are working with great hardware.

I would keep the SSD for the host OS drive and the VM's on the secondary larger drive. So you want Workstation installed on the C: drive with your OS and the VM's on the other larger drive.

If you could make that secondary drive a SSD at some point you would be living like a king.

If it were me at this point I would prolly go with workstation 7 and see if you can back convert and run the VM's you created in 8.

Are you sure you are running the most recent build of 8? I would check the website for good measure as they have had some frequent updates for it since it's release.

 

[The Plc Kid]

Damian

I also use this on my host machine http://www.horizondatasys.com/169614.ihtml

I install this first after I install windows or when I get a new machine so you can always go back to a saved state. it is like VM ware snapshots for the Host.

Check out the video on the link. At 69.00 per liscense it is cheap insurance and has saved me many times.

 

[The Plc Kid]

I love the M6500. The thing is a beast. People usually shake their heads when they see the size of the power adapter. They should come with an air conditioner though!

Yeah I got some strange looks and lots of questions last month when I broke that thing out in the orlando international airport.

 

[DamianInRochester]

Just coming back to close the loop on this.

I was able to resolve my issues with Workstation 8.0. It turns out that after I imported XP mode into VMWare using vCenter Converter Standalone that I had to again Convert it with vCenter Converter Standalone. Apparently the first time it brings it in it is not completely compatible with VMWare. The most frustrating part about this is that all of the errors I was getting were as far from what was really the problem as they could be. If the fault messaging in my progams was that way off my customers would hang me.

I have my VMs setup the way I want them now. They are a breeze to backup. Love the cloning featured. Love snapshots. It is definitely changing my mindset about how I do my work. Loving a lot of the features in VMware that I never even knew I was missing in XP Mode.


Thanks OG for pointing out MS Security. It is small, non-intrusive, and I can't beat the price.

Special thank to PLC Kid for all the great comments and advise. I still have a lot to learn but you gave me a good starting point.

Having all this set up and working so well makes me regret that I had waited so long to take the plunge. It was a good time though. I already had to revamp my machine and update the hard drive so it presented a great opportunity to start with a clean slate.