However, I have changed the operating systems a few times, and now settled on pure OSX, with the following VMs running in VMWare Fusion:

• Desktop – Windows 7 64bit for MS Office (especially Outlook) and BusinessObjects desktop tools
• Server – Windows Server 2008 R2 for SQL Server 2008, Oracle 11g XE, BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 3.1 and Data Services XI 3.2
• BI4 – Windows Server 2008 R2 for SAP BusinessObjects BI4 beta

The thing I’m regretting is moving up to a 15″ MBP.  I really miss the form factor of my 13″ Macbook, and now with 13″ MBPs, I can get the same performance from a 13″ that I can from my 15″.  When I upgrade in a few years, I’m definitely going back to 13″.

The performance is excellent.  I run my Server VM with 4GB RAM assigned, and it hums along.  I’ve got the services that start on boot optimised, so now I only start SQL Server (but not SSAS), the SIA (with only the CMS, File Input and File Output servers) and Tomcat.  Boot up time is only a minute or two, and then I use batch scripts to start up various BusinessObjects servers as required for demos.

Data Services also performs extremely well.  I benchmarked performance of a CSV file with 64,000 rows being pivoted in memory to a couple of million rows, and run time of the job was less than a minute.

For those that seek performance and the usability of OSX, I definitely recommend a MBP with VMWare Fusion.

- Josh

I’ve spent the last week playing, and developing, and even though I can’t get some games working in DOS in VMWare (alas, more on that later), I’m still throwing my chips in with VMWare as the virtualisation software.

I now have running in VMWare an evaluation copy (not beta) of Business Objects XI 3.0, as well as a general ‘play’ copy of Business Objects XI-R2 SP2 w/ DM & PM installed. Now that I’m running in VMWare, where Unix is easy, I plan to deploy a Unix-based version of Business Objects as well (probably into Oracle SE or MySQL).

Otherwise, things just keep on rolling on. I’ve added a blogroll to the right which lists the BO blogs that I keep tabs on, for your interest. In terms of gaming, DOS in VMWare still needs a little bit to go.

Instead, I discovered DOSBox, an awesome little DOS emulator that is so easy to get running and runs everything I’ve tried so far. I have found most of my games at either XTC Abandonware, Abandonia or Abandonia Reloaded.

Games I have tried out (and fallen in love with again) are as follows:

• Bard’s Tale 1, 2 and 3
• Codename: ICEMAN
• Dune
• Dune 2
• Epic Pinball
• Jetpack
• King’s Quest 1
• Lemmings
• Major Stryker
• Mixed-Up Mother Goose (for my wife)
• Oregon Trail
• Outrun
• Police Quest 1
• Pong
• Space Quest 1
• Spit Wad Willy
• Transport Tycoon
• Wing Commander 1
• Wings of Fury
• …and still more to go…

Wow, what a list. And so much fun – I’ve nearly finished Police Quest, and man, that game is amazing.

V Festival rocked out, Pumpkins and Queens of the Stone Age were awesome! One of my old school friends does concert photography, check out some of his amazing photos of Billy Corgan and the other bands here.

- Josh

Up until now I’ve always used Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 to do so. However, working with a lot of different companies, I’ve seen the standard virtual server environment is primarily VMWare ESX.

As the new VMWare Workstation v6 has been recently released, I decided to give it a try a few days ago.

Already I’m in love with it. As I have a bit of a soft spot for Linux, and like playing with it every once and a while, I’ve spent countless hours trying to get Linux working under Virtual PC. Networking is also a bit of an issue under Virtual PC, though I’ve learnt all the tricks now.

Linux under VMWare Workstation is beautiful. One of the main issues with running it under Virtual PC is the graphics driver. When the X server loads in Linux, it’s distorted (unusable) until you fix xorg.conf. Really really fiddly. Under VMWare, it does it all perfect, no command line configuration required.

Virtual PC also has issues with graphics under Microsoft, so gaming is a no-go. Under VMWare though, I’ve installed XP Pro, got Starcraft running with no trouble at all, and am now about to conquer MS-DOS and all those old games that I loved. Descent 3… Wings of Fury… Maybe (if I can find it) Space Quest and Kings Quest and Police Quest… *sigh*

This week just gone I’ve successfully deployed Business Objects Enterprise XI-R2 SP2 into a three-tier virtual environment (Dev, UAT and Prod), with Active Directory SSO in IIS. Their servers are running VMWare ESX. Now it’s just a matter of confirming the virtual servers are powerful enough for a Production environment.

What have your experiences been with virtual machines?

- Josh

PS – Tomorrow I’m off to the V Festival to see The Smashing Pumpkins, Duran Duran, Queens of the Stone Age and some other bands. Should be awesome!! =)