“There’s only one company that doesn’t use Linux for its server virtualization platform. Can you guess which one it is? If you guessed Microsoft, you’re correct. Microsoft is a newbie in the virtualization space but wants in and may make significant dents in the already well-established market that is significantly owned by VMware. For Windows-only virtualization, there may be some validity to the switch to Hyper-V.

For the rest of us, who are either too stubborn or too smart to make the shift to Hyper-V, what are our choices? The following is a list of 5 of the main players in Linux-based virtualization.”

Use the link above to read all of Ken’s original post for some brief info about each platform, but I am listing the 6 products and the links to their free versions for quick reference here. Ken does not discuss nor am I including free hosted platforms such as Microsoft Virtual PC or VMware Server.

• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
• VMware ESXi
• Citrix XenServer 5.0 Express Edition
  
• Virtual Iron Single Server Edition
• OpenVZ or OpenVZ LiveCD
• KVM

Be aware that most of these platforms require 64 bit hardware with AMD-V or Intel-VT virtualization assist technologies. if you need to check if your current hardware is virtualization ready then check out my previous post How to check if your CPU supports hardware virtualization.

Personally I have not used OpenVZ, KVM, or Virtual Iron. It will be interesting to see how these alternatives find their place with customers in today’s competitive market.

Please leave a comment on any products I have not included and I’ll update the list.

Updated 10.03.08 – corrected key combination for Mac versions and created separate rows for VMware Fusion and Parallels Workstation

One of the posts I used as a research reference was Common Virtualization Keyboard Shortcuts from x86virtualization.com. Check out this post for a complete listing all keyboard shortcuts for Microsoft and VMware products besides the one for escaping the mouse from the VM console.

I haven’t covered Virtual Iron much on VM /ETC partly because I haven’t had the opportunity to implement it, but mostly because I hear and see more about the other Xen based virtual host. Here’s some quick info from the Virtual Iron web site about this virtual infrastructure solution:

“The Virtual Iron solution consists of three components:

1. Virtual Iron Virtualization Manager provides a central place
   to control and automate virtual resources. It streamlines tasks that
   are normally highly manual and time-intensive and significantly reduces
   data center costs and complexity.
2. Virtual Iron Virtualization Services are deployed automatically
   on bare-metal, industry-standard servers without requiring software
   installation or management. These features streamline data center management
   and reduce operational costs.
3. Open Source Virtualization, based on an open source hypervisor
   derived from the open source community project, is the first software
   loaded when the physical server boots. The hypervisor manages all hardware
   resources and leverages the hardware-assisted virtualization capabilities
   built into Intel and AMD processors to create an abstraction layer between
   physical hardware and virtual resources.”

Virtual Iron has many features similar to VMware VI3 including LiveMigration (VMotion), LiveCapacity (DRS), LiveRecovery (HA), LiveMaintenance (Maintenance mode), LiveSnapshot (Snapshot Manager), and LiveConvert (VMware Converter).

My take on Virtual Iron’s approach to VDI is that the company is not interested in branding it’s own complete solution, but instead has chosen strategic partnerships to leverage the strengths of it’s virtual platform and provide hosted, brokered desktops to it’s clients. Virtual Iron seems to confirm my understanding about it’s VDI strategy on it’s Virtual Disclosure Blog. The post Virtual Iron and VDI by Tony Asaro, Chief Strategy Officer at Virtual Iron, says:

“We’ve been asked on more than one occassion if we are a VDI company. I’m not sure what that really means. So I am going to say the answer is no – we are a server virtualization company and our customers use our server virtualization solution to host virtual desktops. We enable customers to implement VDI and it is a use case for our server virtualization solution. Our customers use our server virtualization for file, web, email, database, etc – and desktop virtuallization.”

Both Virtual iron and 2X offer feature restricted free versions or fully functional trial versions of their products.

An article from SearchServerVirtualization.com, Virtual Iron, IBM, HP package virtualization on blades for SMBs, reports on Virtual Iron’s new SMB strategy:

“The preconfigured virtualization and management offerings are available on platforms best suited for the SMB space to bring server virtualization and management software to an underserved market, said Mike Grandinetti, chief marketing officer at the Lowell, Mass.-based virtualization software company.

“SMBs have not been able to enjoy virtualization benefits as much as the enterprise-sized businesses have because they are price-sensitive, Grandinetti said, “but they need the same management and technology capabilities. Two-thirds of our customers are SMBs, and we wanted to make a product on reliable platforms those customers can afford.”

Virtual Iron’s software is comparable to VMware Inc.‘s virtualization software and is a fraction of the price, Grandinetti said.”

Virtual Iron’s partnership with Platespin is also leveraged in these packages to add X2V migration capabilities for companies planning to migrate to VI.

“Virtual Iron’s bundles include LiveProvisioning, a “zero touch” automated deployment capability that eliminates the need for physical installation or management of virtualization software on virtualized physical servers. Virtual Iron 4.0 also includes LiveConvert, automated “X2V” (physical-to-virtual or virtual-to-virtual) conversion software from PlateSpin Ltd. for easy migration of workloads. Virtual Iron’s software is based on the latest version of the Xen open source hypervisor and includes automation capabilities from Virtual Iron such as LiveMigrate, LiveRecovery and LiveCapacity.”

Virtual Iron has also announced that it has teamed with Dell to potentially provide similar packages. In the eweek.com article Virtual Iron, Dell Sign Reseller Pact the same SMB strategy is evident.

“The agreement with Dell will give customers, especially SMBs (small and midsize businesses), greater access to virtualization technology, as well as management features, at a lower cost than enterprise-class offerings, according to John Kelley, Virtual Iron’s product marketing manager. “

In my opinion this is a smart move to gain access to many companies looking to virtualize their server infrastructure. As the alternatives to VMware increase, partnerships with hardware vendors will ultimately help IT decision makers feel safe using Virtual Iron.

vRanger (formerly ESXRanger) – is still the best VCB based solution for live VM backups IMHO. I am not sure of the general availability date, but the product will soon use MS VSS as well.

vReplicator (formerly ESXReplicator) – Service console based VM replication. The only solution that I know of at this time that goes the extra step and registers the replicated VM in the VI at the DR site.

vCharter – monitoring, drill down performance analytics, and charge back reporting tool

vMigrator –

“vMigrator provides a powerful tool that can support the upgrade process from ESX Server to VI3, by enabling smooth and seamless migrations to the new platform with minimal downtime even for complex environments.”

vOptimizer -

“vOptimizer is an advanced optimization solution that quickly and easily reduces a virtual machine’s virtual hard drive to the smallest size possible while optimizing Windows guest operating systems for speed and performance. “

vConverter – similar to VMware’s VMConverter in design but can also V2V

“vConverter enables fast and easy conversions without disrupting the source physical system during the conversion process. There are never any reboots, no need to visit machines being converted, no software to install on the source and no downtime. vConverter contains advanced disk and network I/O algorithms to ensure that the fastest possible conversions are executed, and extremely reliable block level cloning is performed to minimize any risk of data loss. “

vPackager – sounds like this product will give some competition to VMware’s LabManager

“With vPackager, customers can configure a Windows based VM with the applications and configurations they wish to distribute, then extract these changes to a compressed package. This package can be distributed without OS licensing implications and applied to similar VMs to merge the changes.”