Difference between revisions of "Virtual Appliances Overview"

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Hopefully this page will illustrate the '''<span style="color:green">coolness</span>''' and future importance of Virtual Machines, which are also called Virtual Appliances.
A virtual appliance is a copy of an operating system and a set of applications (e.g. OEMR), installed, configured, and packaged together into a single download.  The virtual appliance runs inside a virtual machine.  The virtual machine makes each virtual appliance think it is running on it's own computer.  Some of the advantages are:
* Virtual Appliances can be run on any Operating System that supports the [http://www.vmware.com/products/player VMware Player].  
 
* Did I mention yet that the [http://www.vmware.com/products/player VMware Player] is FREE.
* snapshots - you can easily save the entire state of the OS and applications as many times as you want
* VMware's explanation of a Virtual Appliance at : http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/appliances/overview.html
* hardware portability - your virtual appliance can be easily moved to another computer, no worrying about drivers or having the same hardware
* running multiple OSs at once - run linux and windows at the same time without having to reboot
* isolation - keep problems in one OS or applications from affecting others
* easy remote control - you can start, stop, or reset virtual machines remotely
 
Hopefully this page will illustrate the '''<span style="color:green">coolness</span>''' and future importance of Virtual Machines and Virtual Appliances.
 
* OEMR Virtual Appliances can be run on any Operating System that supports [http://www.vmware.com/products/player VMware Player] or [http://www.virtualbox.org VirtualBox].  
* Did I mention yet that [http://www.vmware.com/products/player VMware Player] and [http://www.virtualbox.org VirtualBox] are FREE.
* VMware's explanation of a Virtual Appliance at : http://www.vmware.com/appliances/getting-started/learn/overview.html

Revision as of 07:46, 26 August 2011

A virtual appliance is a copy of an operating system and a set of applications (e.g. OEMR), installed, configured, and packaged together into a single download. The virtual appliance runs inside a virtual machine. The virtual machine makes each virtual appliance think it is running on it's own computer. Some of the advantages are:

  • snapshots - you can easily save the entire state of the OS and applications as many times as you want
  • hardware portability - your virtual appliance can be easily moved to another computer, no worrying about drivers or having the same hardware
  • running multiple OSs at once - run linux and windows at the same time without having to reboot
  • isolation - keep problems in one OS or applications from affecting others
  • easy remote control - you can start, stop, or reset virtual machines remotely

Hopefully this page will illustrate the coolness and future importance of Virtual Machines and Virtual Appliances.