Virtualization is Nice, but It’s no Silver Bullet
The Shop is very fond of using virtual machines for lots of things. And in many ways, I can see it. They make it easy to clone a machine - even move it if the physical hardware has problems. They are reasonably efficient, and for processes and programs that only need a fraction of a machine, they are a great way to isolate one from another without investing in a complete machine for each task.
But I've come to learn the dark, evil side of them.
Greed.
Yup, greed.
It comes from the people that configure them. Say I ask for a VM, they are going to assume that it's not a "big deal", and give me a single core and a little memory. Not too surprising, most tasks don't need a lot. But when you get one that does do something significant, the "cookie cutter" approach that VMs allow gets a little cramped.
When you need a multi-core machine, get the machine. If it's a VM, then you need to go back and say "yeah, but I need another core", and the ensuing "Why?" is something you have to deal with. It's not horrible, but it's what you're going to end up doing more with VMs than when you get hardware that's typically going to be a little more than you need.
I'll get by... but I know now that I need to be asking for "non-standard" VMs with more than one core. I'll learn.