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uy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎12-10-2011 07:44 AM

Running VMware Workstation 8 as a server with shared virtual machines (2005585)

I am referreing to this new feature of workstation 8, as given in this URL

This not very well explained in the user manual and release note and the online documentations. I could not find some basic answers to:

The relationship between the host functioning as server and the host connecting to it -

  1. Which machine provides the hardware CPU & RAM for the VM?
  2. Which machine provides the hardware USB & sound cards for the VM?
  3. Which machine provides the hardware network cards for the VM?
  4. Which machine provides the hardware CDROM for the VM?

I found that the files for vmdk disks are resided in the so called server side, this is found by my tests, not given in any documentations.

There seems to be no standard name convention given so far, I am calling the machine located in my server room the server and the machine on my desk the workstaion. Just for the sake of this discussion.

Logically I am expecting that RAM & CPU are provided by the server end, the CDROM USB & sound to be from the workstaion end. But it will take me the experiments to discover and prove. However it is disappointment that VMware documentations did not provide these important answers.

Then the network wise, I am hoping that the server provide the NIC cards, because the networking is more powerful there, the machine in my server room have more NICs than the one on my desk.

As it is when I tested the new VM created inside the server, there is no indicators of any activities of HDD NIC & USB & CDROM on the lower right corner of workstaion VM screen.The tiny icons does not follow the activities of the virtual devices as usual, compared to my regular VMs created & runnng locally.

If these information were provided somewhere can someone kindly point a URL here for reading these important information.

Thanks.

Then it will come to the next question on sharing the VMs.

Can the each VM be simultaneously used by more than one workstations? I assumed that I can assess from more than one workstaion separatedly, from another desk next to my for example. But can the created and shared VM be used simultaneously by another user? I.E. running 2 instantces of the same VM using twice the CPU & RAM?  If so how are the I/O virtual hardware allocated? virtual disks locks? NIC?

For those who uses V-sphere V-center I think they are familiar with these basics, but I am not one of them.  :smileyconfused:

u.y.
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uy
Enthusiast
Enthusiast
‎12-14-2011 03:29 AM

So far I did my own experiments to find out while there is no documentation on these information found.

  1. CPU & RAM & vmdk disks & vmnet are provided on the server side.
  2. CDROM/DVD can be either server side or workstaion side - this is reasonably good feature.
  3. USB & sound cards are uncertain and don't seem to work so far.

Seems that the workstations connects to server aline VNC client only. And more than one workstaions can simulteneously see the same VM running the same session.

I do think that it may be reasonable to provide connection to workstaition's vmnets e.g. host only or addidional NICs in the workstation side - some how tunneled to the server's end.

USB is more important than sound & printer, if they are not already provided, the purpose is alike thumb drive. And both local (workstation side) & remote (server side) USB devices can be provided just like what is being provided with the CD/DVD.

:smileycool:

u.y.
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