[THIN] Re: To heck with Virtual Machines... I want virtual logons!
- From: "Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com" <jkenzig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 31 Jul 2006 09:52:30 -0700 (PDT)
Alas, It's just a dream and an idea.... : ) At any rate I think what people are
forgetting about memory is, that most of the memory used on a machine is for
services and other "system" processes and not for user sessions. If a machine
has a 4 gig of memory on it, it isn't all being used by a single user. The
only memory space that would need to be moved is the "actual" memory the users
sessions are using at the time. And this is "virtual" remember so you shouldn't
have to worry about where it ends up on the target machine.
Jim
Steve Greenberg <steveg@> wrote:
This is where it gets interesting- VMware VMotion already does this with an
entire virtual machine and there is no interruption to the users in Citrix
sessions! I have even tested running the SoftGrid Sequencer (application
installation process) with a large application in VMWare while doing a
VMotion move and it works fine.
The main constraint seems to be the required disk space on the destination
system, and the bandwidth to move it, however, disk and bandwidth just keep
getting cheaper.
It seems to be like there are some barriers, but this ability seems like it
is just around the corner.... Good call Jim (as always)!
Steve Greenberg
Thin Client Computing
34522 N. Scottsdale Rd D8453
Scottsdale, AZ 85262
(602) 432-8649
www.thinclient.net
steveg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
-----Original Message-----
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Philip Walley
Sent: Monday, July 31, 2006 9:33 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: To heck with Virtual Machines... I want virtual logons!
my .02 on this one. the idea of capturing an entire users session in a
bubble ,so to speak, while easy to say, would not be an easy task. It's
more then just what the app is. It is what the user is typing, doing,
etc. and must all be captured into a single spot that can then be load
balanced across multiple servers. the amount of data to keep real time
would be immense and unless stored in RAM would become very slow once
you get more then a few on a box. If kept on hard disk, the paging (or
the information if stored on a network share) would become a bottleneck.
Even if somehow you were able to throw the realtime session information,
including keystrokes and settings, into a database somehow, the overall
user experience would be very difficult to manage.
Jeff Pitsch wrote:
> VMotion has it's limitations. You cannot simply save soemthing to
> disk and expect to move it cleanly at this point. Yes in the future
> this will probably happen but at this point you'd slow down the entire
> process because anytime you have to go outside of memory you slow
> things down. Virtualizing and moving a whole OS is one thing but
> virtualizing and moving pieces and parts of that OS i much difficult
> because you'd have to untangle the entire mess, move it, then
> reentangle it on the new OS without interrupting or disrupting any and
> all connections.
>
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
>
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com* > > wrote:
>
> But they are doing that with Vmotion and the virtual machine copy
> so it stands to reason you could probably do it if you put the
> memory as part of the virtual session logon. No?
>
>
> */Andrew Wood /* wrote:
>
> but its instance in time - you seem to be thinking of a
> session in a static state.
>
> Say I'm working on database entry application, or a business
> objects report, or in a large word document cutting anad
> pasting text between various documents.
>
> Its not good enough that the document or data entry to
> be saved on a regular basis - if I want to transport my
> session between servers I need to take that whole memory state
> for each of my running processes. Maintaining that copy in a
> transient and portable way - without losing data is going to
> be complicated - imo you'd have to be able to replicate memory
> states between servers writing to a disk and compressing for
> transfer would take too long, especially for a complex, or
> rapidly changing memory states.
>
>
------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:
> thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ]
> *On Behalf Of *Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com
>
> *Sent:* 31 July 2006 15:02
> *To:* thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> *Subject:* [THIN] Re: To heck with Virtual Machines... I want
> virtual logons!
>
>
> Ok think of it this way. Your logon is sandboxed into a
> "virtual area of memory" there are tools like Vizioncore for
> example that can take a virtual machine and compress it while
> backing it up. Why not do this on the fly for sessions?
> Compress, move decompress... I am not sure of the timeframe it
> would take but it certainly is possible. I am not sure that
> you really need to move memory other than the contents of the
> clipboard anyways..with longhorn and the way it stores objects
> in a db instead of a registry this all becomes possible I
> think. Don't think backwards about how things work now and
> try and apply it, think about how things could work and apply
> it and you will see it is a very viable solution.
>
> Jim
>
>
> */Jeff Pitsch > >/* wrote:
>
> No, I'm talking of moving your session. You session is so
> much more than simply the profile. I believe the OP was
> referring to moving your entire session from one device to
> another. That's what I'm referencing. You would have to
> take all that information (page file, physical memory, etc
> etc etc) conslidate it and move it. To me, that seems a
> huge task to undertake and I don't see, currently, how it
> would be viable.
>
> Jeff Pitsch
> Microsoft MVP - Terminal Server
> Forums not enough?
> Get support from the experts at your business
> http://jeffpitschconsulting.com
>
>
>
>
> On 7/31/06, *Jim Kenzig http://ThinHelp.com
> * < jkenzig@xxxxxxxxx
> > wrote:
>
> 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 > 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.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
>
>
>
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