This is a list of requirements that has been put together with Duncan Kincaid, Jim Cain, Jonathan Hunt and Oliver Thomas to facilitate a discussion with our VMware engineer.

VM Requirements 

End Points:

  • Mac OS X 10.5 & 10.6
  • Windows XP & Windows 7 (Vista much less important)
  • debAthena (aka Ubuntu Linux)

Virtual OS

  • Windows XP Pro, eventually Windows 7

Network Requirements

  • Low speed networking already required to run the critical applications because they are keyserved

High Intensity Computing

  • Applications that are known resource hogs and required:
    • ArcGIS
    • AutoCAD
    • SolidWorks
  • We need to support a upper bound of 50 simultaneous users, but usually around 20-25 simultaneous users
  • Current state of video driver support is good enough for these apps now that Direct X 9 is supported

Windows Domain Membership is not a requirement in and of itself

  • Might be one way to work around some licensing issues
  • Might be a way to work around external network file space
  • Can imagine a local VM that is write protected and swappable

Other areas of concern

  • License restrictions on software on the VM
  • Data safety - user data should be stored/backed up if possible outside of the VM so that VMs can be swapped out as needed and so that loss of the flash drive doesn't loose the students work for a year
  • Would like this to be portable such that students could run from their own machines or lab machines and have the same environment (flash drive is one approach).

Current DUSP Student VM

  • Sassafras Key Client (apps are keyed)
  • FTP client
  • Students have admin access (the one they distribute)
  • AutoCAD
  • ArcGIS
  • Printers and Plotters configured
  • 15GB
  • Copy over VM and say copy when launching
  • Students mostly run on their machine (not flash drive)
  •  Windows XP (from Faculty/Staff MSCA media)
  • No labels