Yeah..the sunray was a cool idea but you can do that with Citrix. It is
just suspending the session and putting it in a disconnect state.. not
really moving it anyplace.
And Jeff as far as size goes. There is no fricking reason your profile
should be that big.
The persons data files, favorites, etc should be stored in a home
directory on another files server. I'm talking about server based computing
here..not your home laptop. The idea is that say for example I have 5 word
docuements open and my session needs to be moved. The documents will be
saved to the home directory, the session moved and then reaccessed in the
same state as to where you left off on the new server with the same 5
documents opened.
The idea is something whose time has come and I really do believe is the
next thing you are going to see in the virtualization world. Microsoft now
owns all the pieces to be able to do this with it's acquisition of
Softricity. I think MS should pay close attention to this discussion and by
continuing it here we could work out all the possible scenarios and details
of what such a system would entail.
Jim
*Matt Kosht <matt.kosht@* wrote:
Didn't Sun already attempt this with the Sunray? It has "hot desking"
allowing you to disconnect and move around to other Sunrays keeping
your session alive. Admittedly this is more a hardware solution. I
don't think Sun ever got a lot of interest as you can do almost all of
it with any thin client and a PS 4.0 server.
http://www.sun.com/sunray/sunray2fs/
I like your idea of having this software based, device and server
independent ( a Vmotion style move of a session to another server is
very cool). Get that C++ compiler busy Jim!
On 7/28/06, Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com wrote:
>
> Remember the Virtual Workplace video Citrix showed at Iforum about 4 or
5
> years ago? It was very Star Trekkish with a guy walking around with a
little
> portable computer holding a tele/video conference with people around the
> world. He went from his office, to his car and then to his home where he
> plugged into a cradle and brought the conference up on his giant plasma
TV.
> They connected people from all over the world. When the channel got
staticy
> and dropped and then came back up, he went Oh never mind we just
switched
> over to a new server.
>
> Ok that was Citrix's vision of access back then. Any where, any place,
and
> any device. Fast forward to 2006. The CPS 4 package has much of this
> functionality.. session reliability for example and application
isolation so
> apps don't step on each other. Conferencing built in and more.
>
> Now stay with me here and I will take you on a visionary dream of mine
and
> eureka moment I had last evening in my sleep. (and yeah this happens all
the
> time)
>
> Maybe we are approaching this whole virtualization thing backwards.
Instead
> of virtualizing servers and desktops I think we should be virtualizing
user
> profile sessions.
>
> Here is my dream. You know how VMWare has that Vmotion stuff where you
can
> move a machine over from one physical server to another and not miss a
beat?
> That is pretty awesome stuff. I started thinking (while I was dreaming
of
> course0 why can't someone come up with a way to have multiple identical
> servers with the same apps loaded on them and an admin tool that can
take a
> users entire logon session profile(everything they are doing) and move
JUST
> THE SESSION with the profile over to another machine. And then I took it
a
> step further. It could be automated with a tool to monitor users
sessions
> and move ones over that are stressing the CPU over to a less used
machine.
> So instead of moving a whole server or machine over just move the user
over.
> This is sort of what happened in the virtual workplace video.
>
> I'm asking how hard can this be to do? Put the entire logon into a
"virtual
> session profile"..everything the user is doing. If the users session
slows
> down they get a flag that pops up that Asks if they would like to be
moved
> to a less busy server, if they say yes, it saves their session state,
tells
> the user to hang on a sec while it moves the session profile over to a
new
> server and then restores and restarts the session on the new server. A
step
> further...give the user the option to save their session logon
state..apps
> open etc into a "virtual session profile" so that the could connect back
in
> days, weeks or even months later exactly where they left off. (and it
> wouldn't matter which machine they connect to) With programs like
> softricity to hold the basic backend app information something like this
> should be doable. This is not the same thing as virtual desktops...I
want
> virtual SESSION profiles not Desktops!
>
> Such a virtualization method would be way more useful than virtual
machines
> because you could do things like create a virtual profile with settings
that
> would not be changed and use it across your organization, you could then
> have a flex type of setup that saved session settings and personal files
in
> another home storage folder if necessary.
> The benefits being you never have to reboot a server with users on it,
you
> can have way more users on a real server than you can on a virtual
server
> and you would have much more control over users sessions as you could
set up
> a system to monitor only the ones you want. ...ie.. always make sure
that
> the Directors virtual profile is sent to the least busy server. I know
some
> of this stuff exists today but this is the panacea I want. Think it will
> ever happen? I do.
>
>
>
>
>
