Live Mesh & Virtualization Saves Gas
By Mitchell Ashley on Mon, 07/07/08 - 12:52pm.I came across an interesting blog post by Brian Loesgen over the weekend about his experiences with Live Mesh. What caught my eye was his own use case of Live Mesh for software development. Besides sharing personal files, Brian uses Live Mesh to share his software development files between home computers and computers he's using when he is offsite working from wherever work happens to be. One thing to note too is that Brian uses virtual machines for his development rather than physical machines. Another smart move. Obviously Live Mesh's Community Technology Preview version, a.k.a. beta, limitation of 5GB storage means you can only do so much data sharing with Live Mesh right now, but it's creating the opportunity to see new use cases beyond just warehousing data in the cloud.
Not only is our workforce more mobile and virtual these days, but the cost of commuting and traveling is way up, increasing the prevalence of virtual workforce arrangements. I frequently see messages in my own company like "taking a green day" or "WFH" (working from home) from many, including myself, who have a commute to the office and can just as easily call into meetings, work on projects, or juggle appointments better without having to add a 30, 60 or more minute commute to the beginning and end of their workday. Sure, we've had things like email access, SharePoint portals, wiki sites and VPN access to make our work accessible from the road or while working at home, but so many current technologies require an active connection. The data synchronization in Live Mesh gives us another way to make our desktop and work data even that more accessible. I know myself, I have a dedicated quad-core 8GB Windows Server 2008 server running at my office just to access and use all the virtual machines (no running under Hyper-V) I utilize regularly.
Data synchronization and virtualization are making telecommuting and home officing even more practical and the rising price of gasoline makes it all that much more compelling.
Related Link: See my blog post call for Energy Independence Day in 10 Years.
Like this? Here are some of Mitchell's recent posts.
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Converging On Microsoft Podcast. Current Podcast Episode: Security Mike Gets Serious About SecurityAlso visit Mitchell's personal blog The Converging Network and SSAATY Security Podcast.
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- About Converging on Microsoft
- Mitchell Ashley has a diverse background in software development, network engineering, information security, mobility, collaborative technologies, and IT management and operations. An early adopter of social media in business, he began blogging about security and information technologies in 2006 at theconvergingnetwork.com. Mitchell is VP of Information Technology at CableLabs in Louisville, CO, and previously held positions as CIO, CTO and VP Engineering at prior companies.
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