IIC Interactive Seminar Series

We are pleased to announce another IIC Interactive Seminar. We sincerely hope you will be able to join us in learning about virtualized applications at this hand-on event. -Gabriele

Virtualized Applications:
Increasing the Utility of Legacy or Idiosyncratic Software

Date: Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Time: 3:00 - 5:00 p.m.
Location: 60 Oxford Street, Room 311

Note: Advance registration is encouraged. To register, please click here.

Abstract:

Code written for research and education is not generally designed to be usable in multiple environments or updated for changes in technology. Is there a way to keep using or even to disseminate older-generation or idiosyncratic software? The IIC and the Neuroinformatics Research Group at Harvard have developed a way to encapsulate legacy software in a virtual machine and deploy it in diverse environments, even across platforms. Such a Virtualized Application can run in its own isolated environment while still interacting with the files on a system much as it would if installed directly on that system. This approach can improve compatibility, make life easier for users, and free up resources to meet research and educational objectives. A brief talk about the methods, merits and shortcomings of the Virtualized Application will be followed by a hands-on demonstration and workshop.

Our presenter, Gabriele Fariello, is the Head of Neuroinformatics at the Harvard University Center for Brain Science and a Researcher at the IIC. He and his team members Timothy O'Keefe and Victor Petrov from the Neuroinformatics Research Group will present a brief how-to explanation of virtualized applications and their pros and cons.

The introduction will be followed by a hands-on discussion of general topics including:

• Getting Started
  
• Host-guest file interactions
  
• Host-guest permissions management
  
• Performance Management / Considerations
• Using an IDE (such as Eclipse) to manage the guest Virtual Machine
  

Participants are encouraged to submit or pose additional discussion questions, and are encouraged to come with laptops and a pre-installed version of VMWare Player (or Workstation) available from http://www.vmware.com and one or more Virtual Machines (see http://www.easyvmx.com to create one if you do not have Workstation). An example VA is available for download from http://www.neuroinfo.org/downloads .

The workshop format will be as follows:

• 3:00 Introduction
• 3:10-3:40 Opening presentation
• 3:40-4:00 Questions
• 4:00-4:05 Break
• 4:05-4:50 Hand-on discussion of general and specific issues
• 4:50-5:00 Wrap-up / Break

Members of the NRG may be available after 5:00 PM for additional discussions.