In this blog, I hope to share some of my experences in the fun world of emulation & virtualization. I have been using emulation software personally since the Commodore Released a PC emulator that could run on the Amiga 500…

The first professional push into emulation was with Connectix’s Virtual PC for Windows. With the advent of really fast CPU’s (400Mhz+), and cheap ram (512Mb) It was possible to run an entire Windows domain setup on a single PC, that would include a domain controller, fileserver, Exchange Server, IIS Server, Windows Terminal Server, and an OpenBSD firewall.

The biggest win in emulation, comes from preserving the cost associated with infastructure. Emulators allow you to preserve your software investments, by allowing you to run your older software, even when the original physical machines & media have long since become unusable. Additionally it’s a great way to get in to big software packages, on the cheap by buying older versions at a massive discount.

Besides when it comes down to it, there is nothing wrong with Exchange 5.5, SQL server 6.5, Windows NT 4.0, even VMS 4.5. Who wan’t the constant headaches of upgrading, when you can keep what you already know?

I’ve put this here to satisfy Gravatar, maybe I should link all my stuff?