[THIN] Re: [Off Topic] VMware vs. XenServer -- advice please?

  • From: "Jim Cannon" <Mach1-70@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Tue, 5 Oct 2010 20:47:06 -0500

We have a mix but the vast majority is VMWare as well...One thing to keep in
mind however is your licensing model for XenApp or XenDesktop.We did the 2
for 1 conversion earlier this year from XenApp to Xendesktop licensing.
With that licensing we already have license rights to run Xenapp on
XenServer and through our testing it runs it quite well...That way we do not
have VM costs and only need hardware to virtualize Xenapp..

 

From: thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:thin-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf
Of Jeff Bolton
Sent: Tuesday, October 05, 2010 12:11 PM
To: thin@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [THIN] Re: [Off Topic] VMware vs. XenServer -- advice please?

 

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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