The Mad One wrote:
Hello to everyone,
I'm working on my ACS thesis & I'm stuck on how to classify gPXE's
network booting in the way it is used by a solution like DRBL
(Diskless Remote Boot in Linux).
I know it's a sort of "OS streaming" solution, but can OS streaming be
classified as a VDI solution ?
[because in some manner it is virtualizing the hard drive of the
desktop computer, but the OS is running on bare metal (on that
desktop computer) not in a VM]
VDI= Virtual Desktop Infrastructure.
Please, help me solve this dilemma.
Thanks in advance,
TheMadOne.
Ugh. "Virtualization": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization
Is the term used enough in the industry, do you think? Its utterance
makes potential consumers' eyes light up with "Yeah, I've heard about
that stuff!" Marketing. Fluff. Ugh.
With a BIOS INT 0x13 HDD I/O consumer like DOS, gPXE could very well be
the sole disk provider and you could consider that to be OS streaming.
Where gPXE "hands off" and is no longer invoked to provide disk I/O,
then perhaps you could consider gPXE to be a critical component as part
of an OS streaming strategy.
But gPXE can also provide UNDI and PXE, functioning as a network stack
for UNDI and PXE consumers, such as DOS or some pre-OS boot-loader or
some other product.
But gPXE can also run scripts and Syslinux COMBOOT modules.
Surely gPXE is a network boot-loader... But it's more. :) I guess
"gPXE is cool" isn't thesis material. :S
Where gPXE provides the disk for DOS, the OS would still be running on
the client computer rather than on a server... But then again, perhaps
DOS is running solely to provide thin access as a terminal to server,
where a majority of the processing and user experience would be hosted.
Perhaps you could classify it as "network boot-loader" and "network
stack" and "SAN stack" for your discussion?
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