Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

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jimgaas
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:30 am

Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by jimgaas » Fri Feb 03, 2012 8:19 pm

Hello everyone,
I am new to Opendental and I would like some input. I converted from Softdent to OD and I am delighted with everything about OD. I love the freedom of having the data much more transportable that it was in Softdent. As I read the old posts about changing OD to MS SQL it concerns me because one of the things I really like about OD is fact that it is not married to a closed system like Mr. Softy. I use Schick Xrays which require MS SQL Express. I would love to get this dependency off my back and use an open source database manager, like MySQL, Postgesql, etc. I have talked to Schick and they say they are married to MS SQL. If I am going to be forced into the MS environment, I would like it to be as flexible as possible and as easy to backup and transport to new hardware as possible. Because of MS security, you can't just move a disk from one computer to another and run it like you can in Linux. For that reason, I love the idea that many of you are using, namely running a Windows Server guest in a virtual machine, especially a Linux host. I would also like to virtualize all my work stations by making appliances that are transportable between machines in case of emergency. My network is delicate because I am using Windows 7 Pro as a server, which is a stretch, especially for a MS SQL Express server. I have a mix of boxes in my office consisting of XP Pro, Vista, Windows 7 Home and Pro. They all work together nicely but we have the occasional problem that my XP boxes are dropped from the network. I have also considered the possibility of a Hyper V product, virtualizing all my machines and deploying them to work stations from the server with WAIK (Windows Automated Installation Kit), etc.,etc. I know that Windows Server 2008 has Enlighten IO and works very well as a virtual machine. Can you guys give me some feedback regarding the best server product to virtualize and the best host to virtualize it under, as well as any experience with a Hyper V product like Windows Server 2008 Hyper V. I would also like to know if anyone knows about the possibility of using Schick in some other database than MS SQL Express. Schick's web site is contradictory since it implies that they support Sybase, MySQL, and MS SQL but if you talk to them on the phone they insist that it is MS SQL or nothing.
Thanks for the input!

teethdood
Posts: 267
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Location: Visalia, CA
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Re: Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by teethdood » Sat Feb 04, 2012 9:03 pm

This is just my biased opinion. Other docs may have better setups/suggestions. Take it with copious amounts of salt.

My existing setup consists of windows 7 clients connecting to VirtualBox Guest OS windows server 2008/Ubuntu Linux Host. It works very well for me. However I think it is overly complex. Windows server 2008 is not cheap. The extra features unnecessary.

I just did a new build out for my brother-in-law. Windows 7 clients connecting to VirtualBox Guest OS windows 7 running under another windows 7 Host. If the host computer dies, one client computer becomes the host after installing VirtualBox on it. No special hardware. Easy to get up and running both initially and during disaster recovery. Can't get easier than that. KISS concept. (Another thing to keep in mind: you're going to sell your office one day. Would the new doc be able to quickly pick it up?)

With regards to Schick, what advantage do you get by switching away from MS SQL to an open source database? You're still using the Schick software/hardware. I don't see how it would make any difference. I would advise you to stick to with what's officially supported.
Philip H. Doan, DDS
http://www.kaweahdental.com/

jimgaas
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:30 am

Re: Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by jimgaas » Sun Feb 05, 2012 6:27 pm

Because I am using Windows 7 Pro for my server, it is very difficult to make the network connections to MS SQL from the work stations. I know this would be much easier in Windows Server products but I would really like to be able to run this whole system under Linux in MySQL or Sybase. It would have much greater portability in Linux if I had to change hardware. If I lost a motherboard under Windows Server, even a cloned disk would not help me. By the way, that is one of my backup methods. I clone the server disk every night. That saves me from disk drive breakdown, but not loss of the rest of the computer. I have lost a motherboard before and I was only able to read the disk under Linux. Windows said my disk was trash and had to be formatted. All the data was there, but not according to Windows! That's really what got me interested in virtual drives. I decided I wanted to do P2V conversions to make my system portable. It is easy to make a VHD of a disk, but I have still not figured out how to make that disk bootable. I can read it by attaching the VHD under Windows 7, but it is not bootable and able to run the software on the drive so it is not portable. The only option I have figured out so far is to start with a blank Windows 7 VM and configure it until it matches the capabilities of my server but there must be a better way. That takes days. It seems that Hyper V is meant to do P2V conversions of working drives and that would let me change all my computers to VMs which would provide quick and easy portable backup. I am not quite sure I understand your server setup. Are you running an Ubuntu Host machine with Win Server 2008 as a guest on that machine or is it a dual boot machine with Windows Server 2008 and Ubuntu? If you are running Window Server as a guest under Ubuntu, then that's what I'm talking about. You have perfect portability. You clone the disk and can even take the disk and run it on different hardware with the Windows Server inside as a VM. So to have true portability between different computers, I need to run Ubuntu with a Windows Server guest or try to get the Schick database to run under a different database manager. I think the backup component that people tend to overlook is the way the server is configured, all the network settings and such. That is all gone with simple data backups. If your computer crashes, you lose so much more that just data and a few programs. Someone doing just data backup who loses their motherboard is in for a very rude surprise. I think the only safe way to backup is a clone of the whole disk. Under Linux you just run that on another computer, but not under Windows.

stjames70
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:24 am

Re: Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by stjames70 » Mon Feb 06, 2012 2:32 pm

Teethood mentioned that other users also use virtualization but with simpler set ups. If you do a search on running OD on a Mac, you can see plenty of posts on how that virtualization is accomplished on a Mac. I personally use Carbonite in both Mac and Windows to backup my critical files, I also physically back up to a separate hard drive, and I back up to my home computer using Back to My Mac (like log me in, just much better). Of course, you are stuck using MacOSX, but you could do worse. At least, it is easy to maintain, the hardware is fairly dependable, and since hackers tend to spend their time fabricating viruses for Wintel boxes, the Mac is a bit safer. Linux is great, but not very user friendly (at least not to me). Support is scarce unless you are really into it, and even MacOSX has a wider user base. The other question I had, is why the need for a server at all. Unless you are running many, many instances of Windows 7 or XP Pro, there are work arounds that allow you to connect those workstations to the machine hosting the OD database without a hitch. We have 14 workstations connected to our Win XP Pro 'server' and they work just fine. I really looked hard into getting a server for my system, but after 5 years, I still don't have one, and happily, I now don't understand what the need for it was in the first place.
Anyhow, lots of ways to skin a cat, and since you are probably already invested in the hardware to run Linux, you are probably not really going to change your religion to Apples.

jimgaas
Posts: 31
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:30 am

Re: Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by jimgaas » Wed Feb 08, 2012 6:35 am

My problem is not with OD, it is with the Schick xray database that uses MS SQL Express. This database product does not behave well in a pseudo server environment. My paranoia centers around the fact that a server crash would not only take my data, which is backed up, but also all my network settings, etc. If you think about all the different scenarios that would make you restore from a backup, one of the worst would be a computer failure, for example a burned up motherboard. Even if you have a clone of your disk with every single bit of data, including network settings, it is no good on different hardware. A Linux clone will run on totally different hardware. I run the same Linux disk on different computers commonly. If your computer goes down, you just buy a different computer and continue to run your server. In Windows the security built in to their product prevents you from running a cloned disk on different hardware. This is one of the dangers that made me migrate away from Softdent. Their security complicates the restoration of your data. My thinking is that I would like to run Schick on a database that is not so closely tied to MS. It is hard not to think that some of these difficulties are built in, pushing you to buy their big gun server products and high end server software.

stjames70
Posts: 101
Joined: Fri Dec 18, 2009 3:24 am

Re: Virtualization vs Hyper V and help with Schick

Post by stjames70 » Wed Oct 24, 2012 8:19 am

You know, can you go back to XP Pro? I have found no compelling reason to use anything beyond that iteration of Windows. As far as your motherboard burning out, I read that, and I bought a used MacPro 2008 with nearly identical specs to our main computer which is a MacPro 2008. By cloning the hardware, placing it in my home instead of the office, and running identical software and hardware on both machines, I am pretty sure now that in case of a disastrous failure, we can be up and running in a few hours. The cloning of the hardware really though, is overkill. Any of our networked workstations could serve as the 'server' temporarily since we would shut down the VM workstation on that machine and run the VM server instead. All the computers are on the same workgroup, so it probably would take a few seconds to a few minutes before all the workstations located the VM server. Oh yes, about that limitation on the number of workstations which XP Pro will allow, I did overcome it. I don't remember how, and I don't think it can be done anymore. If you do switch to Macs and go with Fusion for your VMs, I will copy our XP Pro VM for you and you can do whatever you want with it, but our copy does not limit the number of workstations which can be networked. We have 12 VMs networked and running XP Pro without any hiccups. I had Windows 7 in our machines, but it slowed them down due to my laziness in purchasing more memory for the workstations, so I reverted all of them back to XP Pro.

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