Re: [tlug] VMWare/Virtualserver free

[Ragga Muffin <r_muffin@example.com>]

15.8.2006 kello 12:02, Patrick Niessen kirjoitti:
 Sorry for responding late to this topic.
>
Sorry for the "me too" ;-)

> While GSX still commanded a proud price, I was dabbling with xen for a
> while, thinking about using it to consolidate linux servers.  It
> generally was ok, once you got it working.

I can see what you mean, however, xen is not really the same as VMWare 
although
both allow you to run multiple instances of some OS.
Where VMWare emulates the x86 hardware, xen is really only a thin 
hypervisor
and the concept can be a bit hard to grasp at first. ( except for 
dinosaurs, I guess :)

> The main advanatges of VMWare over Xen at this stage are:
>
> *Mature product
> *Many distros and distro versions are supported
> *Extensive testing done with many distributions and windows versions
> *Excellent Support (if you pay for it)
> *Excellent free forum support
> *Good Administration interface
> *Good Documentation
> *Runs Windows without special processors
> *Large user base

Of course.

> I think Xen will become a valid alternative, but it has to prove
> itself for a while, handle windows smoothly, and provide better
> administration & documentation out of the box.

I definitely think the xen approach is something very interesting.
A you say, what is lacking is the documentation, but I think it will 
come.
Right now, you have to be quite familiar with os bootstrapping and
such to get xen domains running. I suspect som admin tools
for things like network settings will pop up too.

However, I'm inclined to think xen and VMWare will serve different
purposes. I see xen as providing many quasi identical sandboxes
for testing or simply server grouping in datacenters.
And then VMWare for grouping some legacy systems together
on one machine for maintainability.

But, we shall see

Just my 2 jpy ;)
Cheers,
--
Henri