[K12OSN] LTSP and virtualization

[Rob Owens]

--- "David H. Barr" <dhbarr at gozelle.com> wrote:

> On 10/4/06, Rob Owens <hick518 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> > One thought I had was to set up an LTSP server
> that
> > uses VMware or Qemu to run Windows 2000 on Linux. 
> (I
> > have enough Windows licenses to cover all the
> > potential users).  Would this work?  Would my
> server
> > load running 10 instances of virtualized Win2k be
> 10x
> > the load of running just one?  Or would I benefit
> from
> > the sharing of memory, processes, etc?  Would I
> need
> > to load 10 separate Windows images on the server,
> or
> > just one?
> 
> I'm currently running VMware (much faster and easier
> than Qemu/kQemu)
> on a Ubuntu machine.  I can tell you right now that
> you will NOT
> benefit from the sharing of processes; you can
> benefit SOME from the
> sharing of memory (although it's a speed tradeoff);
> and you would, in
> fact, need to load 10 separate Windows images on the
> server.
> 
> This is probably not a cost-effective solution for
> you, because these
> virtualization / emulation solutions pretend to be
> an ENTIRE PC, right
> down to the hardware level.
> 
> To adequately run 10 copies of Win2k on a server,
> let's say at 256MB
> of memory per virtual machine, you'd need about 3 GB
> of RAM.  Add in
> the further requirements for the LTSP side
> (including the thin
> clients) plus all the private networking traffic,
> and a hard drive
> image for each virtual machine and you're talking
> about a sizeable
> server investment.
> 
> I have no experience with the Windows Terminal
> Server end, but I
> understand it's pretty easy to accomplish; since an
> LTSP server to
> support only 10 users is fairly cheap to build, this
> may actually be
> the most cost-effective option.

Thanks for the info.

When you say VMware is faster/easier, did you mean
faster to set up, or that it runs faster?

-Rob

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