new deployment ESX vs. XenServer?

[Thuleman]

If you were to deploy a new cluster today. New hardware, new money to spend (or not spend) on licensing. Would you pick ESX+vCenter or would you go XenServer+Essentials?

From a pure licensing perspective it seems that buying ESX has become quite unattractive as VI3:Enterprises' main feature (vMotion) is now available at no charge via XenServer.

Do the differences in technology become irrelevant as time goes on and the only thing that matters is annual cost as well as manageability of resources?

It is true that managing VI3 can quickly get out of hand and become clunky depending on how many boxes you have connected. Or what about the fun stuff of having a bunch of virtual switches to deal with, endless scrolling anyone?

No idea what Citrix Essentials are like, but I am tempted to find out and if it's worth doing I may just chalk this year's VMware purchase off as "lesson learned" and go with XenServer at a significantly lower annual cost instead.

I can't imagine VMware not adjusting VI3 pricing in the light of the free XenServer release.

 

[sabregen]

ESXi has been free since August of 2008, so it's really Citrix that's behind on that one. I would personally deploy VMWare everytime, until I see conclusive evidence that I should do otherwise. We have both deployed at work. There are arguments for both, obviously (or they wouldn't both exist).

My reasons for deploying ESX would be the ability to use things like SRM, DRS, VCB Backup, and a single pane of glass for management in VC Server (or whatever the hell they renamed it to, now). ESX seems to have an albeit slower adoption of new adapters, but the support is rock solid. Based on this, I view ESX as a more commercially viable product. Also in question is the control mechanisms for resources in Xen versus ESX. In ESX, I can create groups of VMs, and using an already deployed AD infrastructure, authenticate and delegate based on users and groups that are already established. In Xen, you're either root, or you're not. And, if you're not root in Xen, you can't really do anything (for management purposes). In VMWare, you can drill down to every action available in VirtualCenter.

Things like SRM, Storage VMotion, DRS, and HA make ESX the one to beat, in my mind. On top of that, companies like LeftHand networks, Brocade, QLogic, Commvault, and many many others are focusing on the commercial validity of ESX as an enabling technology. It's increasing the adoption of these companies products into the datacenter because (even if it's only a perception) there's a standard that is being checked against with support engineers backing the product, when it comes to qualifying new plugins to ESX, or products to support it.

For enthusiasts, and perhaps a company with a dedicated resource in a virtualization guru onboard, Xen usually makes more sense. However, in most companies where there is a small or non-existant IT department, and without the resources to properly manage it in the form of a full time Linux guru, ESX usually makes the most sense for the commercial environment. The major drawback, is of course, that you can't just install Linux drivers for any device, it has to be qualified. Some view this is a shortcoming, and I personally, do not. Having a stringent HCL that is qualified, with documented steps to integration written by the company that made the software that will be running it is reassuring to most companies, and IT departments.

 

[Thuleman]

Thanks for the detailed response sabregen. Unless I misunderstood what XenServer5 does (and I didn't try it yet, and I also don't think I really have the time to try it out), it does come with HA and "live motion" in the free version.

The requirement to purchase VI3:Enterprise to get vMotion (or purchase vMotion separately which really isn't any cost savings) puts VMware into a pricey bracket as far as licensing goes. I can see Academia and the SMB market skipping those charges in favor of just buying Citrix Essentials for Xen to manage XenServer.

 

[Arceon]

We've just plumped for Xen Server 5 Enterprise here, being a small business with basically no money to spend we went for Xen because of how easy it is to remotley administer (and free).

ESXi requires you to buy a $999 piece of software to remotley administer the machine (try to get that signed of when your a financial company with 75 staff in the middle of a recession ) plus you have to pay even more for a backup solution. Xens backup solution isn't brilliant but at least there is an option to export the machines and archive them.

 

[lopoetve]

esx.

The Xen Essentials license is more limited than you think.

No limitations on number of virtual machines, unlike xen that is limited to cores. No linux 2.6.27+ kernel bugs. Better support by far. Exporting machines is simple, and there's a great free marketplace for them. ESX4 is going to have some jaw dropping awesome features too.

And VCB is free and part of the basic VI license, or you can simply export the machines from the VI Client if you wish, which is free and included in the free version of ESXi, so Arceon, you can back them up for free. Works great too - even compresses them.

 

[sabregen]

The $999 to remotely administer the ESXi host: are you talking about VCServer? You don't need VCServer if you're managing 1 host. VCServer is nice, and offers a lot of functionality over the standard web interface that the native ESXi host offers, but in truth, many of the features of VCServer are lost in a sinlg host environment anyways. VCServer really shines when you have multiple hosts, and are running ESX, or ESXi licensed for VMotion, DRS, HA, etc.

There's not "requirement" to buy the $999 VCServer license for ESXi. However, you can use VCServer as a "test" VM within ESXi for 60days, if you need features like Cloning to templates, etc. That cloning feature can be very handy for extending your VCServer trial 60day license, if you're smart enough to know how to leverage it.

 

[Thuleman]

The Xen Essentials license is more limited than you think.

I think there's some misconception in this thread.
I am not talking Xen Essentials. I am talking free XenServer 5 Enterprise as described here: Free, as in Virtual Infrastructure where he wrote:

XenServer, our enterprise virtual infrastructure platform is now free (including resource pooling and live relo)

Resource pooling and live motion are definitely XenServer Enterprise features rather than essentials features, so I would assume that it is indeed Enterprise what they are giving out for free, although I haven't downloaded it myself yet (just not enough time in the day to check it out, will do it on the weekend).

 

[tesfaye]

I think there's some misconception in this thread.
I am not talking Xen Essentials. I am talking free XenServer 5 Enterprise as described here: Free, as in Virtual Infrastructure where he wrote:



Resource pooling and live motion are definitely XenServer Enterprise features rather than essentials features, so I would assume that it is indeed Enterprise what they are giving out for free, although I haven't downloaded it myself yet (just not enough time in the day to check it out, will do it on the weekend).

Workflow Studio for automation and StorageLink which allows managers to directly provision virtual machines are left out of the free package and come part of the Essentials package.

Citrix is offering a compelling product for free. We use VMWare in our enviroment but will evaluate the Citrix and MS solution.

 

[lopoetve]

I think there's some misconception in this thread.
I am not talking Xen Essentials. I am talking free XenServer 5 Enterprise as described here: Free, as in Virtual Infrastructure where he wrote:



Resource pooling and live motion are definitely XenServer Enterprise features rather than essentials features, so I would assume that it is indeed Enterprise what they are giving out for free, although I haven't downloaded it myself yet (just not enough time in the day to check it out, will do it on the weekend).

then their high availability isn't. I know that one or the other is not free, just haven't looked at which. It's an awesome free offering, don't get me wrong, but it's missing a few steps that people on /. thought were included at first.

 

[Thuleman]

Yeah it's almost as if the CTO crew made a "knee-jerk" offering without to let the IT folks that run the web pages know about it. I wouldn't consider myself inept, but I have a very hard time to find any real details on the "free XenServer5 Enterprise" offer other than the blog post.

 

[lopoetve]

Yeah it's almost as if the CTO crew made a "knee-jerk" offering without to let the IT folks that run the web pages know about it. I wouldn't consider myself inept, but I have a very hard time to find any real details on the "free XenServer5 Enterprise" offer other than the blog post.

First day of VMworld post maybe?

 

[Thuleman]

Here's the scoop from the blog link posted above, down in the comments section:

Remember that the new free XenServer does not include high availability, advanced StorageLink storage integration, persistent performance management, or monitoring -- which continue in Enterprise Edition and Platinum Edition -- or dynamic provisioning services -- which continue in Platinum Edition.

There you have it. So the lack of HA makes this not viable for anyone running more than one server, unless they don't want to HA them for some reason.

 

[Arceon]

There's not "requirement" to buy the $999 VCServer license for ESXi. However, you can use VCServer as a "test" VM within ESXi for 60days, if you need features like Cloning to templates, etc. That cloning feature can be very handy for extending your VCServer trial 60day license, if you're smart enough to know how to leverage it.

If this had been clear from the start, then maybe i'd be sat here with an ESXi server now, but because i couldn't find and hard facts on what i did/didn't need, i went with Xen

As for cloning, its free on Xen, so maybe i made the best choice for us after all

 

[Thuleman]

One thing that really hasn't been touched on is: What's the future of Xen?
By giving XenServer away Citrix is clearly focusing on "add-ons" with their Essentials products. Essentials are also provided for Hyper-V. Could this just be the beginning of the end with Citrix essentially abandoning the hypervisor?

Sure, Amazon runs Xen, as do some other shops, but it really didn't achieve the market penetration they had probably hoped for. Novell abandoned Xen in favor of Hyper-V, Redhat went to KVM, is Citrix getting off the sinking ship?

 

[sabregen]

Citrix is taking ownership of Xen. Rehat went to KVM because Xen kernels are no longer in production (because they're not being licensed to anyone else besides Citrix) for other Linux flavors. Citrix is doing what VMWare did last year...offer up a free version to allow people to dip their toes in the water, and see if they like it. If they want extra features, that costs $. Citrix is taking Xen closed source.

I can only see this from one perspective (yes, this is my opinion)...Citrix is doing what VMWare has been doing form the start, closed source software with an entry level (limited feature set) free edition. They've kicked everyone else out of the game, and intend to drive the Xen ship on their own. It's going to create several competing products in the marketplace (in the short term), but we will see down the road, which of them is commercially viable (the market will decide). Everyone's going to have their own flavor. I think this will hurt the success of the Linux virtualization providers (read to mean, Xen, KVM, etc...not RedHat, SuSe, etc).

Time will tell.

 

[geiger]

I'd stick with VMWare on this one.

Citrix has a horrible track record as of late when it comes to product life cycles and management consoles. They may fix 1 thing or add some amazing feature, while breaking 8 more.Metaframe/XenApp 3-4.5FR1 were an absolute train wreck. The move to the AMC from the old management console was a disaster, the console would crash 4 out of 5 times when launching.