Best Laptop Setup for Controls

What brand USB NIC were you using?



For a LONG time (like 10ish years), I had an old Linksys USB2.0 model that worked beautifully. I loaned it to a colleague and forgot to get it back when I transferred locations. I now have one that my manager picked up from Best Buy, branded Insignia, also USB 2.0. I bought a Tripp-Lite USB 3.0 model (with a type A connector), but had issues with my VMs supporting USB 3.0 devices until I found a setting to change in the vmx file. It also shows up in VMWare with the same exact name as my built in NIC, which makes it tricky to remember which one to connect to the VM...so I generally just use the Insignia model. It's been working perfectly for a couple of years now.


I do totally understand being skittish, though...
 
I haven't had a laptop with a physical ethernet port for 8 years. I've never once had an issue. My ethernet cable in my laptop bag just has the adaptor permanently connected to it. It never leaves that cable, to the extent that I have a second backup one in case I need it for something on the fly.

In the office I just have a thunderbolt 4 USB-C dock. One cable to the laptop, and it does charging, two 4K displays, ethernet, and gives me a heap of USB-A ports if I need them.

I'm using a MacBook Pro (M1 Pro chip). I've used MBP's for 8 years now and swear by them, but I know they're not for everyone.
 
Thanks for all of the feedback. One follow up question regarding VM's.

If I'm setting up multiple VM's from within my physical machine, will I be able to use the OS activation credentials from my host PC for my VM's? Or will I need to buy separate licenses for the VM OS(s)? This is assuming I'm going with Windows-based OS for my VM's.
 
You mean Rockwell activations and such? Yes, you will be able to use the credentials on your host PC to activate the applications on as many VM's as you like. One at a time, of course.

Even if, like me, you can't install the activations on the host (in my case because I'm running a Mac host), you can have your activations on one VM be picked up by another VM. You just have to have them both running and networked for long enough for the license to be picked up.
 
CLanford said:
Thanks for all of the feedback. One follow up question regarding VM's.

If I'm setting up multiple VM's from within my physical machine, will I be able to use the OS activation credentials from my host PC for my VM's? Or will I need to buy separate licenses for the VM OS(s)? This is assuming I'm going with Windows-based OS for my VM's.
Click to expand...

I run a lot of different VMs and a lot of simultaneously and across a lot of different hardware.

Get the best resources available

Fastest processor (I9 series or Dual Zeon) with as many cores as you can.

Get as much memory as you can

Get as many hard drives as you can and make them all solid state in the highest capacities you can.

Per your question yes Microsoft treats each VM as a real PC and thus requires a desktop license for each. On server systems, this is a bit different and the best thing to do is to get a windows volume license to save on cost as it's cheaper than a retail or OEM license.

If you plan to network these VMs or attach more than one of them at a time to your physical network then create each VM from scratch or deploy them from a Vsphere server because if you copy them the network port MAC ID will be the same (you can edit it) and the SID will be the same and You can't change the SID and multiple machines on the same network with identical SID's will cause lots of hair pulling issues.
 
Phil Buchanan said:
Per your question yes Microsoft treats each VM as a real PC and thus requires a desktop license for each. On server systems, this is a bit different and the best thing to do is to get a windows volume license to save on cost as it's cheaper than a retail or OEM license.
Click to expand...

I looked into Microsoft VL's and the pricing structure is a little confusing. I'll likely only be using a single VM at a time (on top of my host system), but if the business does scale up I'll keep vSphere and the VL structure in mind. I hadn't worked with it before but it appears to be a nice VM management suite. Thanks for the info.

It may make more sense for me to just buy 1 extra license that I can transfer between VM instances for now. I don't have many clients right now so I can get away with putting everything on one VM for the moment.
 
I highly recommend getting a Business grade laptop.

Consumer grade / gamer grade laptops are garbage, they have decent specs but everything else is garbage, Frame, Keyboard, Track Pad, Screen, etc. You get what you pay for.

Lenovo ThinkPad P16


12th gen i9 (max the cores)
8GB of Ram
minimal hard drive.

buy it.

Then buy 4x32GB DDR5-4800 SODIMM (128GB total), and buy 2x 2TB NVMe SSD drives and install them yourself.

Upgrading yourself with save you 50%.

I have a Lenovo P15 Gen 1, which is 2 years old the P16 is the current model that just came out. I love my P15, I just wish I had gotten an i9 instead of a i7. :cry:


Also Note: Dell Docking stations sucks, and do all kinds of temperamental ****. I have use 3 different models with 3 different laptops.

I have had 0 issues with my Lenovo Thunderbolt 3 Docking Station.
 
joseph_e2 said:
Quick and dirty:
1a) Install Factory Talk Activation Manager on the host and inside each VM. Try to get the latest version you can, just so you don't have to worry about versioning for a while. They'll say they need to match, but I've had the VM version be much newer than the host's before with no issues...until there are issues. Then upgrading the host would sort it out.

1b) Do whatever you have to do to get your licenses hosted to your host PC and visible in the host's FTAM.

2) Inside VMWare, go to the Virtual Machine Settings.

3) At the bottom of the dialog box, click "Add..." and select "Network Adapter" and "Finish".
4) In the list of hardware devices, find that network adapter and set it to Host-only. Check "Connected" and "Connect at power on".
5) Close the settings ("OK" button) and run your VM.
6) Get to the network adapter settings inside Windows. Identify the IP address of the host-only adapter. I generally rename it "LAN-Licenses" too, just so I know which adapter is which.



The following steps may look a little different, depending on your version of FTAM

7) Open Factory Talk Activation Manager inside the VM
8) Open the "Manage Activations" tab.
9) Above the "Path to Activations" box, click the "Update Activation Search Path" link
10) Click the "Add Server" button. In the new line, type in the IP address of the host PC on the host-only network. In VMWare, it will be the same IP address as the VM's local adapter but with "1" as the last octet. For example, on my current setup, my VM is 192.168.75.254 so the search path is 192.168.75.1.
Note: if you have multiple VMs on the same host, each with a host-only adapter, they will all be on the same subnet and can ping each other. The host will always be at x.x.x.1 with the guests set to DHCP.

11) Click "Save" to close the "Update Activation Search Path" dialog box
12) Click "Refresh Activations". The licenses you have on the host should show up in the list.



Steps 1-6 will be the same for Siemens Automation License Manager. The steps within the license manager are a little different but pretty straightforward. I don't have access to that software any more so I can't help you there.
Click to expand...

Thanks for this VM setup info.
 
I have a Panasonic Tough book CF-53 480GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, i5, serial port, USB2 and 3. Posts in like 5 second or something crazy like that.



I build a station with a 24 inch monitor and a USB hub and a MS wireless keyboard and mouse.
 
jets said:
I have a Panasonic Tough book CF-53 480GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, i5, serial port, USB2 and 3. Posts in like 5 second or something crazy like that.



I build a station with a 24 inch monitor and a USB hub and a MS wireless keyboard and mouse.
Click to expand...


My last location actually bought a couple of the Tough Books for the maintenance guys. With an SSD and maxed out RAM, it would go from power on to usable desktop in about 5 seconds, like you're seeing. It was almost eerie. Then...we had to let IT get their hands on it because maintenance needed access to the network storage. Went up to over a minute or two for boot up. Sigh...
 
CLanford said:
I looked into Microsoft VL's and the pricing structure is a little confusing. I'll likely only be using a single VM at a time (on top of my host system), but if the business does scale up I'll keep vSphere and the VL structure in mind. I hadn't worked with it before but it appears to be a nice VM management suite. Thanks for the info.

It may make more sense for me to just buy 1 extra license that I can transfer between VM instances for now. I don't have many clients right now so I can get away with putting everything on one VM for the moment.
Click to expand...

For 1 or 2 licenses Retail will be ok but not OEM. Don't use OEM for VMs.

When you say putting everything on one VM if you are speaking of different software brands like AB, Siemens, and GE then you are really defeating the purpose of a VM in many ways and losing a lot of your reasons to even use a VM.

You would still be able to recover easier if your host is damaged or stolen but you will be losing a lot of the other Pros of using a VM IMHO.
 
Phil Buchanan said:
For 1 or 2 licenses Retail will be ok but not OEM. Don't use OEM for VMs.

When you say putting everything on one VM if you are speaking of different software brands like AB, Siemens, and GE then you are really defeating the purpose of a VM in many ways and losing a lot of your reasons to even use a VM.

You would still be able to recover easier if your host is damaged or stolen but you will be losing a lot of the other Pros of using a VM IMHO.
Click to expand...

i'll second this. Once I started seriously working with controls more than just grabbing the community laptop, it made all the sense in the world to set every VM up as a standalone system for anything that wasn't "alike".

A VM purely for newest of the new AB stuff.

One for Older but not out of date AB

One for out of date but still needs service (Think windows XP).
even a DOS vm

One for Siemens

One for Omron

One for Automation Direct.




The best thing about the VMs and using a license server back on the main PC is you know when you open something, it's going to work and not have an issue because you installed a bunch of drivers for another device and suddenly your main VM is throwing errors when you attempt to browse for online PLCs.

I wouldn't want to work on a single pc/vm even if I only had one brand to deal with, it's just too convenient to take snapshots and savepoints, and copy the entire machine to a backup SSD in the event of some kind of catastrophe.
 

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