Comments on: Free Citrix XenServer includes XenCenter, XenMotion, Resource Pools and Storage Management

By: Tom

Tom — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 01:01:20 +0000

I'm going out on a limb with this comment since I'm really quite new to VMware and I work with ESX in a VERY small business setting. I like and bought ESX (approved purchase) because: 1) its support (blogs and forums); 2) stability; 3) known quantity; 4) 3.5 version runs on both x64 and x32 (I *hope* vSphere can manage both 4.x and 3.x hosts!!).
That said, it was still hugely expensive to buy VMware ESX Ent, even using the EOY promo.
My question out on a limb is, Could this make VMware the next Novell??
Remember, Windows usurped Novell by being easier and relatively cheaper and being "good enough" for SMBs vs. enterprises.
Citrix/Xen/MS look like they are doing this right now.
Even enterprises in this day and age must consider what things cost.
I think people who really like and know ESX will stick with VMware...but new people and SMBs??
Not so much, I don't think, because if most SMBs only need 2-4 hosts at most and they can just spend $5-7k to get what costs over $15,000 from VMware, I know what I'm buying!!
For my company I'll look at switching if I must, really depends on how much VMware reduces their prices.
I wonder if more people use the blogs and forums for VMware support than VMware support per se??
That leaves VMware's S&S as more of an update subscription.
I dunno...I'm new in the VMware field, but I read a lot, and I think people and VMware need to think about this.
Thank you for reading this...

By: paulmon

paulmon — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:42:35 +0000

Conversion is one things but I'm talking just the base ability for VMWare to run unmodified operating systems. Sure VT leveled the field for windows but my experience is that even that doesn't let everything run under Xen.

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:33:46 +0000

Paul,

Citrix will definitely need to simplify the process of converting .vmdk formatted appliances to .vhd. Of course the .ovf standard will hopefully make a virtual machine appliance agnostic to hypervisor platform because it could be imported easily into any solution.

When I consider that subset of virtualization customers that can take advantage of a free hypervisor, I'm not too sure that too many appliances can/will be used.

By: paulmon

paulmon — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:36:13 +0000

While I agree that the “freeing” of Xen Enterprise is a good step by Citrix I still don't see it challenging VMWare too much. The issue with Xen is that it doesn't have a “run anything” architecture. I've used Xen and VMWare, but if you want to grab any random ISO of a Linux “appliance” or BSD “appliance” you can't run most of them in Xen. Sure this doesn't matter for purely RedHat and Windows Server shops which make up a large portion of the userbase, but it still not the same as the baremetal flexibility that VMWare brings to the table.

Paul

By: Tom

Tom — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:01:20 +0000

By: paulmon

paulmon — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:42:35 +0000

By: rbrambley

rbrambley — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 17:33:46 +0000

By: VMLogix Integrates LabManager and StageManager Technologies with Citrix and Microsoft Hypervisors | VM /ETC

Mon, 23 Feb 2009 15:04:58 +0000

[...] automation and VM lifecycle management products currently available today. Coupled with the news of XenServer Enterprise becoming available for free at the end of March 2009, Citrix hopes to gain some significant market share with cost effective [...]