Running CivilGEO Software on Virtual Machines

Hardware virtualization software lets you run multiple operating system instances at the same time on a single computer. Many organizations have adopted virtualization practices to keep up with rapidly changing hardware and software requirements. Virtualization lets you run your applications on a virtual machine, isolated within a server. You need fewer physical machines and can pool computer resources.

What is a Virtual Machine?

A Virtual Machine (VM) is a compute resource that runs programs and deploys apps using software rather than an actual computer. The user can run more than one virtual machine on a single computer system. Each virtual machine has its own operating systems and functions independently of the others even when they are all running on the same computer system.

This article describes how to run CivilGEO software on a virtual machine.

Note: If you plan to install and run CivilGEO software in a virtual environment, check system requirements and verify that the terms and conditions of your license allow use in a virtual environment. Not all licenses permit virtual use.

Prerequisites

This section explains the hardware and software requirements for running CivilGEO software on virtual machines. Make certain to check the following:

Checking Licensing Compatibility

CivilGEO software is licensed as either a Node-Locked Workstation License, Floating Network License, or Cloud License. For virtual machines, the user can use the Floating Network License, and Cloud License only.

To learn more about the types of licenses and how to activate them, refer to this article in our knowledge base.

Installing CivilGEO software on Virtual Machine

To install CivilGEO software on virtual machines, follow the steps below:

1. Open the virtual machine that you are using.
2. Download the CivilGEO software setup file. To learn more about downloading the CivilGEO software, refer to this article in our knowledge base.
3. Once the download is complete, double-click on the downloaded installation file.
4. The installation program will startup. Follow the instructions to install the software.

File Sharing Tips

The user should be careful while sharing files between a virtual machine on which the CivilGEO software is running and the host machine. Note that the CivilGEO software needs to place all created, imported, and exported files from CivilGEO on the same computer system (either a virtual machine or host machine) on which they are installed. Therefore, if the software is installed on the virtual machine, the user cannot save the project on the host machine and run project files from the virtual machine. The user must save the files to the virtual machine where the software and its license server configuration utility are installed.

The following methods can be used to share files between the virtual machine and host machine:

Performance Tuning Tips

The slow performance issues of the virtual machine when compared to the host are quite common. Therefore, the virtual machine requires a performance tuning approach to fix slow performance issues. The following performance tuning tips can help users speed up their virtual machines:

1. Allocate additional memory
2. Exclude virtual machine directories from antivirus tools
3. Use fixed-sized disks instead of dynamically allocated disks
4. Defragment your virtual machine
5. Provide additional CPU
6. Instead of shutting down, save your virtual machine’s state
7. Try a different virtual machine software