[THIN] Re: [Off Topic] VMware vs. XenServer -- advice please?
- From: "Jeff Bolton" <Jeff.Bolton@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 13:10:52 -0400
I'd go with VMware as your core Hypervisor. It's a much more mature and
robust platform for virtualization. I have 85% of our environment
virtualized on vSphere and have no issue with compatibility nor
performance of the virtual machines. Our existing SQL 2005 cluster is
still on physical servers, but we have a virtual SQL 2008 cluster up and
running now and will be migrating applications to it as they come due
for upgrades. Our physical Exchange 2003 cluster will also be replaced
by a virtualized Exchange 2010 implementation later this year.
We also run our XenApp 5/6 and XenDesktop 4 servers on top of the
vSphere hypervisor without any issues. We use XmediusFax here, but it's
similar to your Zetafax, so you shouldn't have any issues with that.
We've been running our BES server as a virtual machine on this platform
since v3.x (we're on 5 now) with no issues.
We went with XenDesktop over VMware's VDI for our virtual desktops as at
the time we implemented, Citrix's ICA protocol ran circles around
VMware's RDP based client over high latency links, though the new VMware
View 4.5 client using PCoIP brings it's performance back on par with the
Citrix client.
For huge I/O hogs like SQL, Exchange and File servers, you'll get better
performance out of them if you don't virutalize the storage. Can't
remember what XenServer calls this at the moment, but in VMware, you use
RDM (Raw Device Mapping) to map physical LUNs or NFS shares to your
virtual machine. This way you can virtualize the binaries, and offload
the disk I/O to the storage device.
As for the SAN, Lefthand is nice, but take a look at NetApp before you
make a decision. Their in-line De-Dupe is second to none and saves huge
amounts of disk space in virtual environments.
Cheers
Jeff
________________________________
From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On
Behalf Of IT Helpdesk
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 4:50 AM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] [Off Topic] VMware vs. XenServer -- advice please?
This is a bit off topic, so please bear with me!
We're about to embark on a project to virtualise practically our entire
server estate.
Two vendors have quoted - one recommending XenServer and the other
VMware.
Both saying their solution is the best and ridiculing the other, so we
are a little confused!
We have 100 users all running thin clients & logging on to published
desktops.
We're swaying towards XenServer with an HP Lefthand SAN but I'd like a
little advice from the list first please...
I've read the Tolly report
<http://www.tolly.com/DocDetail.aspx?DocNumber=209103> on Citrix
performance via XenServer, which is great, but what about the other
servers?
We will also be running SQL 2008, Exchange 2010, as well as the usual
file servers, DCs etc etc.
Is anyone running a similar setup to us on XenServer? How is it going?
Any pitfalls? Any regrets?
Any issues with software compatibility?
For example, we also run BlackBerry Enterprise Server and Equisys
Zetafax - both are supported in a VMware environment, but XenServer is
patchy. In theory it shouldn't matter, but there's always the chance
that if we run into issues and log a support call, they'll just turn
around and blame XenServer.
Thanks.
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