Comments on: Xen, KVM, Hyper-V, Oh My…And vSphere…Just Does Not Have The Same Ring As…Lions, Tigers and Bears?

By: Raw

Raw — Fri, 26 Nov 2010 05:11:32 +0000

This is 2010 all predictions are failing.. VMware has added 20000+ customer since last year
Growing at twice compared to any other IT firm…

By: Schorschi

Schorschi — Fri, 15 May 2009 00:40:58 +0000

At the time I wrote the original blog entry, CSV was not reality, however, as part of R2 beta, CSV is more than somewhere between vaporware and alpha, and maybe viable. As part of the R2 beta CSV can be evaluated, and I plan to do so. On paper CSV still feels like a cludge to me, not that CSV is not reasonable, more that the fail-over cluster model is weak compared to Xen or VMware. Microsoft uses what it has, but MSCS is showing both its age and its limitations in reference to Hyper-V, it is still a pain to setup compared other options. Of course Microsoft will improve MSCS as Hyper-V drives its maturity forward. MSCS in many ways has not changed since I worked with it and supported it in late/early in 1998/1999, on NT 4.0… Ouch, I just realized how long ago that really was!

By: George

George — Thu, 14 May 2009 21:51:33 +0000

I don’t agree about the complexity of clustered hyper-v server, have you tried clustered shared volume yet? It’s extremely easy! And reliable too.
I agree that the game and money is played on the management tools arena, even citrix follows the example.

By: Vasquez

Vasquez — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 11:05:18 +0000

I have a hard time believing that people who claim that Xen is dying don’t have an agenda. The fact is that Xen is considerably more robust than KVM and Hyper-V. Additionally, while an ephemeral claim, I have managed Xen servers running a Citrix farm significantly faster than when it ran on ESX 3.5 (and in my lab, vSphere).
And now that Citrix has release all of Xen Server and its management tools for free, it would be irresponsible to not consider it.
Its true that VSphere’s feature set is far more robust than any of its rivals, you get what you pay for. But not everyone needs a Rolls Royce, and for those who don’t I would take Xen over Hyper-V or KVM every time.

By: Schorschi

Schorschi — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 05:06:46 +0000

The long term success of Xen has yet to be determined. Given that more is better, when it comes to competition, I would like Xen to be around for a while. However, when I polled my friends that are actively doing design and integration work for virtualization, and they run the gambit from small mom and pop to Fortune 10 firms. The exit from Xen as a real viable solution is factual, sad to say. Is my poll scientific, can I say more are going Xen versus than leaving, no, but nor do I feel that is the point. The point is, Xen captured a unique segment of the market that is the same as what KVM is focused on as well, the ‘I am less expensive than VMware’ scope and with the extensive muscle that RedHat has, Xen is under threat, never mind Microsoft Hyper-V playing in the VMware-costs-too-much arena. This cannot be ignored. Moreover, when I have friends saying they are dropping Xen in favor of KVM? That is real world. Is KVM with Virt-Manager as good as Xen? I would say right now, no, but as KVM and Virt-Manager mature together to a degree of integration faster than Xen did or has, because RedHat and IBM for example push its maturity to push on Microsoft and VMware? What does that say of where the future will be? For KVM? KVM has real strength in the Open Source community that Xen to some degree has lost. The buzz is key for open source growth, and the buzz is KVM focused now, Google makes this obvious as KVM gains critical mass. This combined with what Citrix has not done with Xen? I call that two strikes against Xen. Again, having worked with Xen, I am not thrilled with this situation, but I have to acknowledge it. Especially when I have clients and customers that ask me, what is the best solution for them, for the long term? I cannot in good faith recommend Xen for much longer, when the facts support Xen having a hard road and stormy path ahead as KVM dominates. Unlike Gartner, I don’t have a battery powered Crystal Ball, so if Xen does survive and trumps KVM, I will be quick to say so in this blog!

By: Stephen Spector

Stephen Spector — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 18:33:23 +0000

I find it odd that people think Xen is dying simply because Red Hat is moving toward KVM; although they continue to develop new solutions for Xen. The Xen.org community is very active and we are about to release our Xen 3.4 product with several new features developed by Oracle, Intel, AMD, Sun, Novell, Citrix, Red Hat, Fujitsu, etc. I encourage people who think Xen is dying to stop by the community and see that it is very much alive and continuing to grow.

By: Schorschi

Schorschi — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 02:29:00 +0000

Jas, good points, thanks for the respone! I agree now is the key time for VMware, because the dragon is wake, if still a bit sleepy and uncoordinated. Paravirtualization is gaining ground, and I think we are only a short time from seeing real significant abstraction at the chip level even beyond what paravirtualization is or will be. Call it BIOS level virtualization, processor level virtual hosting, where our entire model for a modern OS goes out the Window, or cough, Windows, ok, bad pun, but it was too easy to let it just cache.

By: Jason Boche

Jason Boche — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 22:30:19 +0000

If MS wants to give their products away, that’s their business. But I don’t understand the point of MS spending the development and marketing money other than for goodwill and philanthropy and maybe the propagation and perpetuation of the Windows OS. It seems like a lot of effort to convince people to use Microsoft Windows as a platform, when Windows already has a respectable market share.

No doubt VMware has a scary adversary. Personally today, I value VMware for their innovation and features that are not currently matched by any other virtualization vendor. Could that picture change in 3-5 years? Sure. That means VMware will need to stay a few years ahead of its competitors. While improvements can be made to the hypervisor, I believe it’s mostly cooked and for quite some time predictions have been coming true that the real selling points will be in the management software. It’s sink or swim for VMware, it’s competitors, and it’s partners.

One thing is for sure, virtualization is here to stay and anyone who can stay abreast with all of the virtualization technologies will be successful in the long run.

Jas

By: Armchair General

Armchair General — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 10:57:40 +0000

What are your thoughts on the fact that VMWare is still after all these years a “one product company” now battling Microsoft who have come into the market with a product that is pretty much free?

History is littered with one product companies, with huge technical superiority to Microsoft’s (cheap or free) offerings, most of them are just a faint memory. Netscape versus IE v1,2,3 anyone?

I suspect VMWare’s life is now bounded at best (maybe even marginalized in future), where once it looked like a whole new world. MS will end up owning the market-share, and Citrix will do what they did with Terminal Services, build an enterprise business above the basic MS giveaway.