VM or Citrix

I need to run many remote Fat development clients (tools 8.96), Which is the best platform to run them (Citrix, VMWare , Oracle VM)?
considering performance, bandwidth, costs, etc.
Thanks in advance

This gets tricky on current versions of E1. Here are some additional considerations that will help make your choice:

- Do you plan on using the web development client, or are you strictly doing UBEs with no interactive applications? If you don't need the web development component, then Citrix may work for you.
- You mention TR 8.96, so you must be using 8.9, 8.10, 8.11, or 8.12. Only 8.9 and 8.10 are officially supported running under Citrix Presentation Manager (or MetaFrame).
- There are several published methods of getting a multi-developer installation done under Citrix, but they mostly deal with the limitation of having to share the .ddb and .xdb spec files. In E812, the spec files are no longer used, and thus invalidates all of the methods. E812 makes you deal with specs in a local MSDE database, which probably makes it easier for several people to share, if it weren't for the fact that ...
- Neither WebSphere Express nor OAS play very nicely with Citrix. If you need to develop interactive applications or debug business functions running in applications, forget Citrix Presentation Manager (or MetaFrame).
- If any of the above rule out Citrix, you'll need to consider Application Virtualization solutions, or running a bunch of Virtual Machines. If you choose to go the VM route, any of the leading virtual machine solutions that support Windows XP as a guest OS will work fine. I know for sure that VMWare will work, and I'm sure Virtual Server will as well.

I know we haven't dealt with bandwidth, licensing, and performance, but I feel that the issues above will narrow your choices, and we can deal with the rest after ruling Citrix in or out.

Hola Jose,

Citrix for remote development for 8.12? No way. It's not supported by Oracle for any release. It was insanely difficult to setup for XE, even more so as you progress to later releases. Don't go there. VM-ware is an option to explore, especially if you already have it set up. Once you have a vm-ware host setup, take a PC, fully configure it for development, then use it as a template for the P to V (Physical to Virtual) process. I have set this up, it's very simple once a VM-ware host has been established.

The other solution to look at is a fat client farm. Set up a bunch of PCs to some KVMs with windows XP as the OS. Assign a remote PC to each developer. They can connect to the PC through a terminal server connection. That solution is very easy to set up and manage. PCs are cheap, especially since you won't need monitors. You'll need to set them up to a KVM so they will boot and so an operator can restart the computer. You'll need one monitor for 10 or 20 PCs. If you want an analysis of these alterantive, send me a direct email and I will send you a white paper I wrote on the topic.

Gregg Larkin