[ale] Mass Machine Virtualization w/ Remote GUI Access

[Jeff Hubbs]

I've got a situation where a number of users on a development shop LAN 
are in a bad way because they're trying to run a number of different 
Win2K3 Server virtual machines - done up in Microsoft Virtual PC - on 
their desktops.  This has come to result in people trying to pull and 
push around 4-6GB of MSVPC files on the LAN, and, of course, anyone who 
wants to actually run an instance on MSVPC has to have scads of RAM and 
this is often incompatible with various people's desktops and laptops 
who may be running "only" 512MB, tops. 

My way of addressing this would be to use VMware instead of MSVPC, 
running it on an "uberserver" capable of  holding and running numerous 
virtual machines at once, such that various people can connect to the 
virtual machines at the display level from their own WinXP desktops and 
laptops. 

It's that last part that I have a question about.  Given that it would 
be nice if more than one person could actually connect remotely to any 
one of these virtual machines (i.e., fighting over mouse/keyboard if so 
inclined), how to best cover the remote access?

Ways I'm aware of include Xorg+Cygwin, a commercial X Server for 
Windows, VNC, or MS Terminal Services. [NOTE:  I assume that all but the 
last would take place over OpenSSH].

What do you think?

Jeff