4

I've noticed that Microsoft added an option to download all IE virtual machine as a Vagrant image. I was wondering what is the purpose of this (as this was apparently a much-requested feaure)?

What benefits does a Vagrant image of Windows and IE provide to web development and testing?

Edit: The question is specific to the use of Vagrant over traditional virtual machine use (like VMWare and VirtualBox).

WolfieZero
  • 377
  • 3
  • 16

1 Answers1

1

It mostly comes down to productivity and efficiency. It is a huge pain to install an OS in a virtual machine and then manually get the updates installed regularly, for let's say 20 machines.

Also this can be even more difficult when we are testing historic releases.

From the web development and testing stand-point a key benefit is you are assured you are using exactly the same environment in design, as the developers and testers are.

As John Boyd said of the Observe-Orient-Decide-Act (OODA) loop we need to respond to change more quickly than everyone else. Vagrant allows us to tighten that loop.

So in summary not only does it make life easier when we are working with older releases, from the configuration standpoint. It saves time in deploying the test enviornments, ensures everyone is 'on the same page' designer, developer, and testers and makes it easier for us to respond to that all vital change just fractionally ahead of the curve.

References MSOpenTech on Vagrant Technology and Wikipedia - OODA Loop

Edit: In relation to comment

Vagrant makes things easier. You no longer have to use nano to configure your virtual machine or sit there for hours stuck at a command line, wondering if you colleague is using a LAMP stack or LEMP stack.

You save time, and you gain the ability to mirror identical environments to everybody working on the project. You can version control the machine configuration, and roll back easily.

If you're working in larger environments with load balancing etc you can build all your servers simply by adding them to the vagrant file.

Issues such as a colleague having a different version of nginx installed, or php x.x.x instead of x.x.y are a thing of the past. You can check in your changes, have your colleague check them out and know they will be running them on exactly the same server that you have just finished developing on.

Gary
  • 1,086
  • 2
  • 13
  • 39
  • Apologies, I should be more specific in my question. I'm wondering about more about the use of Vagrant specifically rather than virtual machines as a whole. – WolfieZero Jul 27 '16 at 11:38
  • Hi WolfieZero, have updated to give you a bit more insight into the benefits of vagrant specifically vs a standard VM. – Gary Jul 27 '16 at 11:54