Virtualization and remote access
From SME Guide
2X terminal server
2X ThinClientServer PXES edition makes the move to thin client computing easy by delivering a solution to convert existing PCs to thin clients and centrally manage thin client devices from any vendor (HP, Neoware, Wyse, Maxspeed and more). User's connection & device hardware settings (RDP / NX, screen size, Applications that users have access to, Terminal Servers and VMware virtual desktops) can be controlled centrally by device, user, group or department (Active Directory / LDAP) via the web based interface. 2X ThinClientServer PXES edition is the next generation of PXES 1.0, the popular free Linux thin client OS. The new version of PXES incorporates the Linux thin client OS, and also includes a server to allow for central configuration & management of the thin clients. Among the features:
- Converting existing PCs to thin clients
- Manage users' connection settings centrally by user, group or department
- Limit users to 2X published applications rather than giving access to a whole desktop
- Thin client vendor independent: Manage any thin client / PC centrally
- Supports virtually all thin clients and computer hardware
- Multiple full desktops per ThinClient
- Support for printer and sound redirection in 2X published applications
- Hotplugging engine support
- ThinClientOS diagnostic tools
- Automatic update notification
Eucalyptus
http://eucalyptus.cs.ucsb.edu/
EUCALYPTUS - Elastic Utility Computing Architecture for Linking Your Programs To Useful Systems - is an open-source software infrastructure for implementing "cloud computing" on clusters. The current interface to EUCALYPTUS is compatible with Amazon's EC2 interface, but the infrastructure is designed to support multiple client-side interfaces. EUCALYPTUS is implemented using commonly available Linux tools and basic Web-service technologies making it easy to install and maintain.
KVM
http://kvm.qumranet.com/ FLOSSMETRICS link: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/kvm FLOSSMETRICS quality evaluation: http://melquiades.flossmetrics.org/projects/kvm/quality
Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is a Linux kernel virtualization infrastructure. KVM currently supports native virtualization using Intel VT or AMD-V; limited support for paravirtualization is also available for Linux guests and Windows in the form of a paravirtual network driver, a guest virtual memory manager, and CPU optimization for Linux guests.
OpenVZ
OpenVZ is an operating system-level virtualization technology based on the Linux kernel and operating system. OpenVZ allows a physical server to run multiple isolated operating system instances, known as containers, Virtual Private Servers (VPSs), or Virtual Environments (VEs). It's similar to FreeBSD Jails and Solaris Zones; as compared to virtual machines such as VMware and paravirtualization technologies like Xen, OpenVZ is limited in that it requires both the host and guest OS to be Linux (although Linux distributions can be different in different containers). The use of a single kernel image allows for a significant reduction of virtualization overhead, that for most loads is limited to a few percent. All the virtual machines are also manageable from a single console, for example supporting concurrent execution of a command in all the virtualized instances.
OpenXVM
xVM Server is a data-center grade, bare-metal virtualization engine that provides hypervisor life-cycle management for servers. It is designed to be a cross-platform, high efficiency, open source hypervisor capable of hosting multiple guest operating systems (including Solaris, Windows, and Linux), with advanced CPU and memory handling capabilities. The server is being built using technology from the Xen open source project as well as Sun Logical Domains (LDOMS). xVM Server turns the computer into a dedicated virtualization Software Appliance with a top-of-the-line, easy-to-use interface you attach to over a standard https connection. The data model is exposed as public programming interfaces via WS-MAN allowing direct web-service access to the public APIs from any WS-MAN client.
X2Go
http://x2go.berlios.de/index-en.html
x2go is a "server based computing environment" combining the advantages of different existing solutions. x2go is "end user ready" and has improved usability. It can be sized from single PC-installations to enterprise networks with multiple servers and LDAP Trees. x2go is a fast, secure and simple way to connect to your desktop over local LAN or even over a low bandwidth internet connection. x2go is open source and available for different cpu architectures. x2go comes with kcontrol plugins which will help you administrating a x2go environment. We have added "live filter search widgets" and other innovative ideas to help you with your daily work. x2go supports LDAP and adds no scheme or other modification and it's possible to use existing installations. User sessions can be graphically stopped, shared or discarded. With x2go spyglass you can see what's going on on all connected clients in your x2go environment. The thumbnail previews can be filtered by users, groups, rooms, ip-zones and you can arrange them by their true physical position. If you want to allow somebody to use this application you only need to add him/her to the referring posix group.
Xen
The Xen hypervisor, the powerful open source industry standard for virtualization, offers a powerful, efficient, and secure feature set for virtualization of x86, x86_64, IA64, PowerPC, and other CPU architectures. It supports a wide range of guest operating systems including Windows, Linux, Solaris, and various versions of the BSD operating systems. It is the basis of several other virtualization systems, like Citrix or Oracle.
