Except for the hardware bits, this is a non issue: See Shavlik, Zen (does it still exist?), SCCM, etc.. Hell, my crappy little office (4K users) does patches & updates using a combination of WSUS & SMS. If we really needed to, we could deploy .msi packages via AD (Please no.), or logon scripts.

As far as the hardware goes, In ten years I have very rarely seen shops that actually update hardware. (exceptions to the rule: Computer savy users (eg: (un)helpful admin proxys); admins) Usually the top dogs have their oldish stuff pushed down the line, and stuff gets thrown out when it depriciates: Too much trouble to buy new memory to upgrade. We want everything the same. Like eMnim.

Anyway, that's my $2 The issue that usually kills VDI is licensing. It's an expletive. Out of curiosity, has anyone used any of the application virtualization products? Symantec (slogan: Where good products go to die;) has one where you can roll out apps in a para-virtual manner with delta updates & rollback capabilities. I saw another one recently where a VM with the OS+application stack was pushed to client machines & managed from a central template. (At least that's what the marketing drones said.)

You need features xyzpdq: Company 1 has features zyzpa, Company2 has features zyxpdb: Company2 also happens to be free software.

Yeah Me.

However, I suggest that you want the software that will help you do your job better. Crappy Helpdesk software won't help you retain knowledge. If employees who resolved a tricky problem leave, that knowledge is gone.

Stuxnet for sinking their battleship!

I beleive you mean: "Right now they are working on USB4-ever."

Thanks

In a virtual world it lies: I suspect that most Operating Systems lie about what physical hardware:

VMware allows for over-commitment of most hardware. (CPU, Memory, and Hard Disk). Windows allows for over-commitment of Memory

Since this is making assumptions about memory management: (Flash: Various algorithms may be tuned for optimized use in your specific use-case).

In your case of grabbing 80% of memory: This works if you really need the memory - in which case you have to have it: If this forces Windows (linux, whatever) to swap some "system" memory it make slow down system processes (disk write, responding to network requests, running tomcat...) and cause your system to slow down. Perhaps it works for you.

If your "system" resides in VMware, your memory may be a swap file depending on over-commitment. Say some Joe-Rent-a-Network has connected you a server in a "secure" location. In a Co-Lo. On VMware. Now if each system has an application (or two) that grabs 80% of available memory...

Lets say Your 80% memory grab meets the swap file, across a network link to the cheapo SAN...

If I'm Joe Rent-a-Network and you make me have to go figure out why performance sucks for everyone I'm gonna kick your ass.
Now get off my lawn

I even got a semi-decent salary: All I had to do was write a coherent letter de-constructing the duties described to job-roles... If the company is sticks to their guns on cheaping out - stay away.

Dear Sirs, I am responding to your advertisement seeking a technical expert. Your ad lists 24 required and desired skills. These skills imply that the person you are seeking is an expert in Cisco Routers, Windows System administration, database administration, and AIX. These positions pay X,Y;Z respectively (link to last years pay report).

If you are still reading at this point, your skill list looks like
*numbered list of skills from advertisement

I am able to do *whatver skills you are expert in* at an expert level, medium skills at a medium level, and the rest of that crap at a remote monkey level.

As I would love to work for your shitty ass company, & I can do the job of X - may I suggest it may make more sense for your company to hire several people to fill these responsibilities? An individual who can do all the positions listed will cost (sum of average salaries linked above x2) and will both cost your company more & create a larger single point of resource failure.

If you are interested in my services as an excellent (Whatever you think you would want to do at the company.)as part of an effecient IT team, please contact me at X

I'm glad you are not impressed, as this car works less well than your homebrew electric car, but it's impressive enough.

FTA, the engineering was getting a 90% efficiency on the power transfer from battery to wheel on the highway. That it gets almost the range of a commercial effort with cash...

Does anyone know if BP, or anyone else, is paying the government for the oil that they have extracted from the ground?

I'm sure the lease for the rig includes a $.0x/barrel-extracted. I don't see that the fact it's not going to BP's use should matter. "they" have caused oil to be extracted: it's lost to future extractors... pay up. (in addition to the cleanup costs.)

I am of two minds about this:

Mind 1: Several of the benchmarks essentially state that virtualization is the only place where the AMD 6 core clearly out-benches the Intel 4 core.

Mind 2: Making a whitebox for ESX is such a pain in the ass that it's almost worth more to buy a frigging expensive server to do the job.

-> anyone know a good motherboard to stick a 6 core amd chip in and run with ESX. No: Virtualization on top of a full OS is not the same.