Get off the beaten track, finally!

I was charged with a task of setting up a PointGuard demo.

Now, PointGuard "friendly infects" the computers on internal network and then controls them, enforcing policy rules and compliance. It has to run on a server such as Windows 2003 and it needs a good number of machines to control. How does one do this?

Obvious solution of actually having all these machines is DOA, dead on arrival.

I thought of running it on my "monster server" which has 2 Gigs of RAM. I would put the Windows 2003 on top of VMWare, and run a few VMWare Windows XP, and one machine makes a complete demo.

I have spent a couple evenings just installing Windows 2003 (the server is somewhat old and boots slow, but then "flies"). Until the idea hit me! How could I have gone on this track! All my other projects are on EC2/S3, and this one is on my own hardware! Unbelievable.

So here is the right architecture.

1. Get an AMI with VNC working, so that you can work on the machine with GUI;
2. Install VMWare (if not present) and install 2003 on top of that. Get a trial version for 6 months;
3. Replicate 50 (our demo key only allows that many) and control the 2003 slaves through the 2003 master;
4. Bring it up on demand, then shut it down.

So what is "monster" about my server? That it is monstrously old, born 2001, and I almost went the way of the dinosaurs, but recovered my wits at the last moment. Sigh of relief.