There is no black-and-white answer to the question of which server virtualization platform to choose. If someone tells you there is, he's probably wearing a salesman's hat. I don't wear that hat, so I'll try to help you make an informed decision with some platform comparisons.
At the time of this writing, there are five server virtualization solutions: VMware ESX Server 2.5.3, VMware Server,
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Xen 3.0 and XenEnterprise. Let's start with a brief introduction to these products:
Criteria
In this four-part tip, I will first describe the criteria for evaluation and evaluate the options in terms of administrative features. In part two, I will discuss
technical specifications and support. Part three will go over management and high availability. Finally, part four will compare the options in terms of extra features and give a summary of the evaluation.
(These criteria borrow heavily from the VMware server
product comparison chart.)
[TABLE]Processor
All the comparisons assume that VMM is running on an Intel
processor that supports Intel Virtualization Technology (VT-i, VT-x).
Host / control OSs
When a host or control OS is required, the following will be used:
[TABLE]Sources
My information for the following comparisons is derived from the
material I found online about the products, by reading white papers
and other related documents, talking with VMware engineer Michael
Wilson, and a phone conversation with Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource,
on 2006/5/10.
Administrative
Read on to learn how the major options compare in terms of administrative features.
Cost
I
will not be addressing Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), only the
monetary cost of the product itself.
[TABLE]With three of the products being given away, ESX and XenEnterprise
better offer some key features to be worth their price
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points.
Winner(s): VMware Server,
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, Xen 3.0
Loser(s): VMware ESX Server
2.5.3, XenEnterprise
Open source
This section evaluates whether or not the VMM is open source software.
[TABLE]Xen 3.0 and XenEnterprise are the only
VMMs in this comparison that are open source, a huge benefit to those
who wish to better understand and modify VMMs. This also means that
investors in virtualization do not have to worry about a vendor going
out of business and taking their source code with them. (There are ways to obtain source code from VMware, but it is still not open source.)
I do not necessarily believe that software immediately gets a black
mark for not being open source, so the closed-source solutions do not
lose points, but Xen does gain them.
Winner(s): Xen 3.0,
XenEnterprise
Loser(s): --
Service level guarantees
Service level guarantees ensure defined allocations of VM
resources such as CPU, memory, disk and network.
[TABLE]All the solutions offer service level guarantees with the
exception of VMware Server and Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2.
While they may not seem like a big deal, service level guarantees
help you enforce Service Level Agreements (SLA). Service level
guarantees are a crucial feature of any virtualization solution.
Winner(s): VMware
ESX Server 2.5.3, Xen 3.0,
XenEnterprise
Loser(s): VMware Server,
Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2
Click here to read part two, which discusses technical specifications and support.
Andrew Kutz has been professionally involved in the technology sector for 11 years. For the last six of them he has worked with the latest technologies while employed by the University of Texas at Austin. He started his own consulting firm and development house, . He is also a founding member of the Austin VMware Users' Group (VMUG). His current pet development project is Sudo for Windows.
