If the list of features in ESX Server 3.1.0/VirtualCenter 2.1.0 as exposed by virtualization.info actually make it into the shipping product, VMware will even more rapidly increase the gap between them and the rest of the virtualization market. The features list sounds like a “wish list†from virtualization customers far and wide:
- DMotion (the ability to live migrate a VM and relocate the VM storage to a different SAN LUN)
- Host and guest patch management functionality
- VCB/VMware Converter integration
- VMware HA guest-level visibility (to restart a guest after a failure occurs inside the guest)
- CDP support (perhaps furthering the rumors of Cisco switches running on ESX Server)
- Various important networking upgrades, such as 10Gb Ethernet support, TOE card support, IPv6 support, and support for various network load balancing mechanisms
- SATA support
- N_Port ID Virtualization (NPIV) support (this will allow us to present virtual Fibre Channel HBAs to guests)
- iSCSI support within VCB (available today with VCB 1.0.3)
And the list goes on and on…
If all these features make it into the shipping product (and I haven’t seen or heard about potential ship dates yet), VMware will be, in my opinion, virtually untouchable. (Sorry, bad pun.) Is anyone else out there in the virtualization market anywhere close to matching this feature set? (I’m not aware of any other products that can even come close, but if I’m missing something I’m sure my readers will let me know!)
I heartily recommend you hop over to Alessandro’s site and have a look at the full report. Outstanding work, Alessandro!
Tags: ESX, Virtualization, VMware
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Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 11:57 am
PK.
Xen Enterprise 4.0 (now in beta) does almost all of these things. They’re not super-natively supported but I have at least 50% of the features you’ve listed running on our 4.0 beta box.
Thursday, August 9, 2007 at 1:33 pm
slowe
PK,
Can you provide any specifics as to the particular features that are actually included in the XenEnterprise 4.0 beta? Thanks!
Friday, August 10, 2007 at 4:56 pm
Kent A
Here is the feature list I was able to gather from the Xen website:
XenEnterprise 4.0 New Features
* XenEnterprise Resource Pools – up to 16 servers plus shared NFS and iSCSI SAN storage
o Shared authentication, authorization, resource and configuration management
* Storage Flexibility
o Shared and private storage, volume and file-based (VHD), over multiple (DAS, SAN, NAS) connections
o Thin provisioning, copy-on-write, snapshot for file-based VMs
* XenMotion™ Live Relocation – move running guest VM within resource pool with virtually no service interruption
* Increased Scalability
o Memory: 128GB/host, 32GB/guest
o CPUs: 1-32 physical, 1-8 virtual
o Networking: 1-8 physical NICs, 1-7 virtual NICs
o Storage: 1-128 Storage Repositories, 16TB/SR
* 64-bit Hypervisor – 64- and 32-bit Guests
o 64-bit Windows Server 2003 and Windows SBS 2003
* Enhanced Resource QoS Control
* Hotplug for virtual disk and NICs
* Secure, remoteable XenAPI upward-compatible from OSS Xen – XML-RPC and language bindings
* Enhanced ‘xe’ CLI for fine-grained system control
* XenCenter – new Windows graphical administration console
o Guided wizards
o Configuration of multiple XenServer hosts and multiple resource pools
o VM lifecycle management
o Storage configuration and management
o Guest templates
I didn’t see anything on the level VMware Converter, VCB, Patch Management of the guest, Dmotion over non-connected storage, or integration of 3rd party switches and CDP, or the Power integration. Of course, this is an outsider’s perspective.