Hi everyone,
One of my consortium members at Yale is running a Mac shop, and we are looking for feedback on pros and cons of various products to allow us to run windows on the Macs. We are using parallels right now, but we're having some issues with copying/pasting, printing and general performance. Is anyone out there using Fusion or VirtualBox, or anything else?
I look forward to hearing your thoughts.
Thanks so much!
Hi Patrick,
Yes, we're on RAMP, actually, which I neglected to mention in my original post. So we are connecting to Tessitura remotely already. Thanks for your thoughts!
Mara
If performance is what you are concerned with I would second the opinion of looking into setting up a Terminal Server and using RDP for everyone to run the App. If you decide to do the Terminal Server route you could also take a look at the 2x application server software. It will allow you to publish a link on the Mac desktop the startes the Tessitura App without the users needing to see the rest of the windows environment. We use the 2X application server software for some other apps here and it works great.
Mara,
Here's some advice from a guy who has used parallels and vmware fusion.
DITCH Parallels immediately and switch to VMWARE Fusion. I had lots of issues with parallels as well. As soon as I switched over I was very impressed with VMWARE Fusion. I have not had 1 single problem with it. Tessitura works perfectly. I am using Windows XP pro as my OS.
Christian @ The Tech
Thanks, Christian! I've passed your advice on to the IT person at the unit. Can I put him in touch with you directly if he has any follow up questions?
No Problem.
I would second (third?) the RDC option from a Mac. It will win on performance, plus you'll be able to manage that session with all of your familiar Windows admin skills without getting too deep into the Mac stuff (unless you want to). The only trick may be printing; I'm not sure how well mapping a ticket printer via RDC would work.
If you do want to go with the virtual OS, I'd recommend VMWare Fusion over Parallels, primarily on the support angle. I've used both and haven't had Christian's issues, but I have more trust in VMWare than Parallels to continue the product. I'd be curious to see how VirtualBox works, but I'm not willing to be the first to find out. :)
One win for a VM is that printing would win there, I believe. Sometimes print drivers on a Terminal Server are annoying, and taking printing off the WAN would help the speed. On the con side, it's more desktop management. If you're doing it, the marginal cost should be minimal, but if they're a pure Mac shop, they might not have the expertise for managing the Windows virtual desktops.
At Lyric, we support a VPN/RDC connection for Macs (and PCs), but we don't have people doing major printing at home. I'm bi-OSal too, so feel free to ping with any other questions.
CC