Best Practice Suggestions - One Dev box, VMWare, Windows Server, Ubuntu, Mac and more

[ddodge2]

Hi Folks,

TL;DR - What's the best way to simulate multiple, independent servers, each with its own IP range, on one development machine and five IP addresses that can have a public 'face'?

Well, two years into things I am finally able to focus on what I am hoping will be a fun "next step." I recently picked up a gig where I am going to be involved in migrating an older VFP 6-based solution. Only, it is not all VFP6 - there are other items like Moodle(Ubuntu, I believe) and other items, one being a CSV-based messaging system.

After considering various options I decided I'd go ahead and spend some money and build a development machine where I could simulate inter and intra-server communications. This will include an Azure future, combined with an internal network (LDAP) and some sort of "slipstream", or dual-track development process that will stay live on one hand and incrementally migrate to the new cloud-based solution.

I "get" that Lianja has all of the above, plus more (Thank you, Hank, for twisting my arm :) ) and with that in mind I had a few questions, please.


Are there any licensing-related issues should I have, say, more than one Ubuntu server running a Lianja Cloud Server? (up to ten, right?
What about the Lianja SQL Server? Same thing?
There used to be a version of Azure on a local box. Does anyone know if this is still available, or does Lianja have something similar (I think so, would like to confirm)
Does Lianja interface with GitKraken?


I also need to get a sense of the process of scaling to the cloud and ultimately (and hopefully) the ROI story will be strong enough to induce at least a serious consideration and comparison against the current out-of-the-box approach. Not that it is bad, just that a more cohesive story always helps.

There is quite a bit more, but this ought to get things rolling.

Thanks, for your time.

Doug

[barrymavin]

Hi Doug,

Firstly, the Lianja Cloud Server is licensed for one machine whether virtual or bare metal. Lianja Server has the same licensing model as Cloud Server... However its built into Cloud Server so it is not required to activate it separately.

The APaaS Developer license includes up to 3 activations one of which will need to be the App Builder itself.

An ISV license allows unlimited Cloud Server distribution.

LIanja has git support. We use GitHub ourselves. Gitkraken is just another Git client so you can use that with Lianja.

We are going to release a docker image in the new year. This will initially be linux based.

We are planning a windows docker image too but seeing as windows nano server does not run any 32 bit applications we are going to provide a windows cloud server x64 version so we can support docker on windows.

Email me and I'll sort something out for you during development.

[ddodge2]

Barry,

Thanks, I will do so tomorrow. There is quite a bit of potential I think and it'd be fun to get a big win but the same sorts of issue, primarily that nasty human nature 'thingy' :) still exists.

You may already know this but VMWare and Docker have a history of not playing well together, primarily because Docker uses Hyper-V and, if I recall, neither VirtualBox nor VMWare do. Apparently, one approach is to run something like Ubuntu in a VM and then a Docker machine inside of that. I have VMWare 15.5 and a number of search results indicate using Esxi, so, a bit of 'fuzziness' exists. I haven't had the time but I need to think about this going forward.

And, one of the apparent "gotcha's" is that to have nested VMs only the Intel chips will work.

Apparently, though, some folks have found a way: https://dev.to/ans_ashkan/how-to-use-docker-on-windows-using-vmware-workstation-without-hyper-v-eib, but there is this as well: https://www.reddit.com/r/vmware/comments/dblu92/vmware_workstation_155_and_hyperv_2019_coexistence/

Here is something a bit more authoritative: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Virtualization/Hyper-V-Powering-Windows-Features/ba-p/1063685

I have had 5 IP addresses here at the house for quite a while now and I want to simulate internal and external 'visibility' scenarios. More via email.

Thanks,

Doug