On 27 Nov 2002, Hannu Krosing wrote:
> Al Sutton kirjutas T, 26.11.2002 kell 20:37:
> > D'Arcy,
> >
> > In production the database servers are seperate multi-processor machines
> > with mirrored disks linked via Gigabit ethernet to the app server.
> >
> > In development I have people extremely familiar with MS, but not very hot
> > with Unix in any flavour, who are developing Java and PHP code which is then
> > passed into the QA phase where it's run on a replica of the production
> > environment.
> >
> > My goal is to allow my developers to work on the platform they know (MS),
> > using as many of the aspects of the production environment as possible (JVM
> > version, PHP version, and hopefully database version), without needing to
> > buy each new developer two machines, and incur the overhead of them
> > familiarising themselves with a flavour of Unix.
>
> You could try out VMWare and run a linux virtual machine under Windows,
> You could set it up once with all necessary servers and then copy the
> files to each new developers machine.
>
> VMWare is not free, but should be significantly cheaper than buying a
> whole computer.
If you're gonna go that far, look at reversing that situation, i.e. run a
linux box for each person with windows in vmware. It's a much more stable
situation than the other way around.
Either way, you can then run multiple Windows instances, of different
versions of windows if need be, which means you can test and develop for
multiple windows environments on one box, no rebooting, not even having to
turn your chair around.
VMWare likes memory, so get plenty if you go that way.
And don't worry about the problems getting familiar with most newer
flavors of linux, they're pretty easy to grok for most developers.
P.S. a note on windows and vmware: It's not uncommon for companies now to
build a large linux box, put vmware gsx on it, and run dozens of windows
instances. That way the spare cycles for one server can be used by
another, you can consolidate your windows servers onto a couple of boxen,
and you get much more reliable operation from windows when the hardware is
abstracted away from underneath it.