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Citrix XenServer

Feb 28 2009   10:18PM GMT

Citrix XenServer now free



Posted by: Raj Perumal
VMWare, Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, Citrix Essentials, virtualization wars, ESX, ESXi, virtual center

Hi folks, you may have heard that Citrix XenServer is now free. This is great news for the virtualization world because now we have yet another fully capable virtualization product without virtual machine limits (the old Xen Express had a 4 machine limit) to to compete with Microsoft and VMware.

However I do have to speak to something regarding this recent announcement. Apparently some people have been saying that this is the first free hypervisor that is actually capable of being deployed in a production environment. Now I don’t know about you but that smells like a lot of marketing BS to me.

As far as I’m concerned even VMware’s free ESXi has always been a fully capable production environment product. I have used it in countless customer sites and it runs solid, stable and with great performance. Likely that comment is designed to affect the opinions of people who haven’t had much experience with virtualization and aren’t in the know from trying it themselves.

Citrix is joining forces with Micrsoft with the Citrix Essentials product which support Hyper-V and XenServer. I think this is going to backfire because Microsoft is not going to let Citrix’s virtualization product eclipse their own. Sure they have had a great relationship for years and years, but when it comes to this virtualization war, Microsoft is not going to settle for being behind Citrix.

On the other side, VMware will have to watch out, because it’s obvious it’s competitors have VMware set firmly in their sights as their number one target.

-RP

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Aug 2 2008   8:16PM GMT

Bare Metal Hypervisors



Posted by: Raj Perumal
Virtualization, VMWare, hypervisor, Citrix, Microsoft, Hyper-V, XenServer, Citrix XenServer, IT consultant, ESX Server, IT Consulting, ESXi 3.5, ESXi, Level 1 hypervisor, bare metal hypervisor, bare metal, level 2 hypervisor

With Hyper-V out now, the virtualization marketing machine from all the different virtualization companies is in full swing. The battle is on and it looks like it’s going to be an ugly one. With virtualization pros on either side spouting the virtues of their product and claiming why one is better than the other.

Within the past few days I have read about a ton of cost comparisons between all the different offerings out there between Hyper-V, XenServer, and VMWare. I think at the end of the day, you need to delve a little deeper and look at the differences between the technologies that make up these products and what they mean to you and your business.

 One of the core differences that is important to me (and might not be important to you, depending on your needs) is the level/classification of hypervisor that is employed by the various companies. VMWare and Citrix both offer what are called level 1 or type 1 classification hypervisors. These are hypervisors that install on bare metal without an underlying OS. Whereas Microsoft offers Hyper-V only installed as a role on Windows 2008. This is what is called a level 2 hypervisor or type 2 classification hypervisor.

This is important because anytime you have a virtual product using a level 2 hypervisor, the hosting OS gives a larger footprint to attack and can compromise the security or stability of the box more than a level 1 hypervisor would. Now for non mission critical servers this wouldn’t be much of an issue, but for mission critical virtual machines this could be the difference between choosing which virtualization product is right for you.

However, it is said that Microsoft will be developing a level 1 hypervisor. We will have to wait and see how this progresses, because once this comes out, the lines will be even further blurred between the different competitors.

-RP

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