You might want to have a look at XEN Server. They offer an absolutely free edition (based on agreements of their take-over of the open source software). The free edition does not provide enterprise features like dynamic memory allocation, but the licensed version does (add-on product).

 

I have tested several virtualization platforms, but my fav is XEN. It's performance is incredible. Give it a try!

I think Xen is what Linode runs on, and Teh runs on Linode.

Whoa, it's inception for technology!

I'll give it a peek, thanks!

I have tried to install the open source XEN on a test machine, but I was not able to get all the drivers running. With the Citrix edition, everything comes highly maintained out of the box.

 

This was the solution which worked best for us, and we're operating three servers with up to 15 machines per server.

You know ESXi has a free edition, too, right?

 

And if you honestly think XenServer is an objectively better platform than VSphere then you're crazy! It's a pretty great product, but better? No chance!

Hi Dan - not sure he claimed that.

It was more a case of Xen was his favourite, it works for them, and there's a free edition to get a taste.

Can Xen server use the Citrix Receiver in the app store?

No, they're totally different products. Citrix Receiver is simply a client for connecting to XenApp / XenDesktop in an Remote Desktop esque way.

 

You have to use XenCenter to manage to your XenServer, in the same way as using the VSPhere Client to manage your VSphere ESXi servers.

 

As an aside, it's very important you refer to the Citrix product as XenServer, because Xen or Xen Server could easily be taken to mean 'pure' Xen, which it's based on. Although there are, of course, similarities, they're discrete products for nearly all intents and purposes.

Does this conversation confuse you like it does me? I keep thinking they're talking about you.

Xen and the art of server virtualisation?

Yes, I just pretend that they are talking about me and how great I am.

But we do need to use XenCentre to manage you...

Well I do need managing, I can be quite a handful (nj).

Only when you've been wined and dined Xen ;) (mj)

Buy me some oatcakes and we'll see.

So, has anyone played with the newer version of Hyper-V? At my new place, we have three Hyper-V servers, but are seriously considering moving to VMWare as the initial release of Hyper-V is very basic (can't share devices between host and guest, zero mouse support until integration services are installed, less scalable, etc). These servers aren't pooled and have 24GB of RAM, each currently runs about 5 VMs - depending on the requirements of the guests.

Of course on the other hand, VMWare is quite expensive, so if the newer release of Hyper-V adds some much needed features and a bit more scalability, we might look at upgrading Hyper-V instead of moving to VMWare. So, anyone played with it yet?

I've installed it on my dev box but that's as far as I've got :$

(As an aside, I have no doubt VMWare will still be best in class. Citrix seem to have all but lost interest in catching up, too. Essentials Plus should be plenty for most people and you can get 3 hosts, 2 CPU's each, with 3 years of support for £6800 according to VMWare.com. You can probably get it cheaper through a reseller.)

Though expensive/cheap is all very relative.

Actually, weren't you working in education? They offer some very good discounts.

Also if your HyperV servers are just standalone, have you considered the free version of ESXi? I wouldn't ever recommend it normally, but it may do the trick for you.

Working for an offshore oil services company in Aberdeen now, quite an upgrade from the simple 5-server setup I had before! The kit that they have is mainly stuff that they were landed with following a recent sale of one of their divisions (the division which managed the IT). At the moment, there's a large handful of decent standalone servers, plus 3 virtuals with 24GB of RAM - each running its own standalone copy of HyperV.

We're wanting a fourth host, but are also wanting to improve the efficiency of things. Does the free version of ESXi support features such as variable memory and growable images? VMWare's site isn't obvious about this.

Do you mean like HyperV's dynamic memory? No, it doesn't do that and I think you need one of the higher editions to support hot add memory (This off the top of my head). That said, VMWares memory management is extremely good and while I don't like it, they do officially support and recommend memory overcommitment so that may be able to do what you need. You can thin provision VDisks in ESXi, though.

(NB: Some / all of this may have changed in the new VSphere 5.1, I'm yet to look properly)

By the way, you can run up ESXi in VMWare Workstation fairly easily (Free trial available). Then you just need the free VSphere Client installed - connect to your new virtual ESXi box and you'll see all the features. The ESXi install is ridiculously simple.

It IS very cut down compared to full on vSphere, but most features require your hosts to be in a VMWare cluster and ideally have shared storage etc.