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Welcome back. The last video examined how you can manipulate virtual machines in interesting
ways. In this video, I'll show you ways virtualization can be used as a tool to increase productivity.
We'll start with a look at software development. Virtualization can be a very useful tool for
quality assurance testing. Let's say I'm a web developer, and I want
to make sure my website looks good with different browsers. In particular, let's say I'm targeting
Windows users using Internet Explorer. I have a number of Windows virtual machines which
I can run at the same time. In my VMware inventory I have Windows 98, Windows 7, and Windows
8 On Windows 98, I'm running IE 5. On Windows
7, I'm running IE 8. On Windows 8, I'm running IE 10.
Let's arrange them all in the same workspace. To do this, I'll use a VMware feature called
Unity Mode that lets me pop the information out of the VM and onto my desktop. I can do
this with both Windows 7 and Windows 8. Win98 is too old for this, so I'll leave it in its
VM. I now have all three versions of IE on the
same desktop, with the same web page loaded so I can compare. Let's bring up the Equinix
blog site As you can see, things look good in IE 8 and
IE 10. In IE 5, though, we have problems. If this were a target browser, we'd have work
to do. This shows how virtualization can make software
testing a lot easier. Now let's look at how virtualization can make
application deployment a lot easier through the use of virtual appliances. Application
deployment can be time consuming. First you plan the installation, then you
get the installation media and begin the installation, then you do a whole lot of waiting. Wouldn't
it be great if someone else could do the work for you? Well, there's good news. A lot of
applications are available as pre-built virtual appliances.
We'll start by going to the VMware Virtual Appliance Marketplace where you can find a
whole bunch of pre-built VMs. You can search by industry or technology.
Let's say I'm interested in running a WordPress blog site. I see a bunch of virtual appliances
from BitNami. Let's check out their site. As we can see BitNami helps you deploy apps
to your desktop, server, or the cloud. I'll choose server...
Where I see a wide range of OpenSource applications. Let's choose WordPress ...
I'm given a choice of installation packages for Windows or Mac, a virtual machine, or
a cloud server deployment. I'll choose virtual machine, which then downloads to my system
... When I open the download, I see a folder with
the familiar elements of a virtual machine. There's also a .OVF file, which stands for
Open Virtualization Format. If we double-click on that file, we're presented
with a VM import dialog. I'll change the name a little and click Import ...
When the import is finished, my WordPress VM is ready. If I look at the settings, everything
is configured and ready to go. Let's power on this virtual machine.
The VM then starts up, and pretty soon I'm presented with the console interface. I just
need to log in and get the network address of my WordPress server ...
Which I can then enter into a browser to bring up the WordPress interface. I can choose language
options and then go to my site. If I want to modify my site's settings, I
can log into the admin interface and select Customize Your Site.
Let's change the site Title and Tagline ... When I'm finished, the site is updated.
The whole process was far quicker, easier, and less error-prone than if I had done a
traditional software installation. So that's a quick look at how virtualization
can make you more productive. In my next video, I'll show you some weird things you can do
with virtualization. See you then.