Virtualization comparison & reviews

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Pros
  • + XenServer it is OpenSource based
  • + It is highly optimized for XenApp and XenDesktop workloadsLeader in virtual delivery of 3D professional graphics
  • + mature and feature-rich offering
  • + great ecosystem & support
  • + skills prevelant
  • + Not Specified
Cons
  • - Less features in free edition. See http://bit.ly/2ddQiVL
  • - less general purpose; specialized (EUC, cloud)
  • - needs clear strategy for public cloud future
  • - comprehensive capability but can become expensive
  • - NSX leading SDN solution but skills scarce
  • - Not Specified
User Reviews
Details (by section) Expand All Data
General
60%
86%
58%
Content
Content Creator
The VIRTUALIST (Gica Livada) and Enzo Raso (Citrix)
THE VIRTUALIST
WhatMatrix
Assessment
Overview
XenServer 7.5 Enterprise Edition includes features that are not available in the Standard Edition, focused on enterprise customers needs, as well as Citrix support:
- Live patching and automated updates
- Conversion manager for vSphere
- Dynamic Workload Balancing & Audit Reporting (WLB)
- Accelerate Citrix Provisioning Services performance

For Standard vs Enterprise edition, please check: http://bit.ly/2ddQiVL
NEW
vSphere 6.5 Standard - Click Here For Overview
WS 2016 + SC 2016 (Standard)  - Click Here For Overview
Maturity
XenServer 7.5 Release date May 2018
Release Dates:
vSphere 6.5 : November 15th 2016
Release Dates - W2016, SC2016: October 2016 (initial Hyper-V: Jun 08, SCVMM Sep 08)
NEW
Market Position
Niche Quadrant (behind VMware and MS)
Pricing
Virtualization
Open Source (free) or two commercial editions, pricing for Standard Edition is: Annual: $763 / socket, Perpetual: $1525/ socket - both including 1 year of software maintenance.
Std: $995/socket + S&S:$273 (B) or $323 (Prod);
Std + Ops Mgmt: $1995 / socket + S&S:$419 (B) or $499 (Prod)
Standard: $882 for 16 physical cores.
NEW
Management
Free (XenCenter)
$5,995(Std) + $1,259(B) or $1,499 (P)
System Center 2016 Datacenter: $3,607 or Standard $1,323 per managed endpoint (up to 16 physical cores)
NEW
Bundle/Kit Pricing
Yes
yes
Vmware switch offer until July 2017
NEW
Guest OS Licensing
No
No
yes - up to two virtual OSEs with Standard (Windows Server vms)
VM Mobility and HA
60%
86%
58%
VM Mobility
Live Migration of VMs
Yes XenMotion
Yes vMotion
- Cross vSwitch vMotion Only
Yes (Unlimited Concurrent, Shared Nothing; new compression & SMB3 options)
Migration Compatibility
Yes (Heterogeneous Pools)
Yes (EVC)
Yes (Processor Compatibility)
Maintenance Mode
Yes
Yes
NEW
Yes
Automated Live Migration
Yes Workload Balancing
No
Yes - Dynamic Optimization (CPU, mem, disk I/O, Net I/O) and VM Load Balancing
NEW
Power Management
Yes Workload Balancing
No
Yes - Power Optimization
Storage Migration
Yes (Storage XenMotion)
Yes (Live Storage vMotion)
Yes (Live and Shared Nothing)
HA/DR
Cluster Size
64 hosts / resource pool
NEW
max 64 nodes / 8000 vm per cluster
64 nodes / 8000 vims
Integrated HA (Restart vm)
Yes
Yes (VMware HA)
NEW
Yes (NIC and unmanaged Storage failure detection - Virtual Machine Compute Resiliency - NEW)
NEW
Automatic VM Reset
No
Yes (VMware HA)
NEW
Yes (Heartbeat)
VM Lockstep Protection
No
Yes (Fault Tolerance) 2 vCPUs.
NEW
No
Application/Service HA
No
No
Yes (VM Compute Resiliency)
NEW
Replication / Site Failover
Integrated Disaster Recovery (no storage array control)
Yes (vSphere Replication)
DR Orchestration (Vendor Add-On: VMware SRM)
NEW
Hyper-V Replica - Storage Replica
NEW
Management
60%
86%
58%
General
Central Management
Yes (XenCenter)
Yes (vCenter Server Standard)
NEW
Yes (System Center 2016 / VMM) 
NEW
Virtual and Physical
Limited (plug-ins)
Limited (plug-ins)
Yes (Complete SC mgmt, Fabric Updates, Storage Management)
RBAC / AD-Integration
Yes (hosts/XenCenter)
Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts)
Yes (SCVMM)
Cross-Vendor Mgmt
No (native)
Yes (Vendor Add-On: CloudPlatform)
vRealize Automation (Vendor Add-On)
Improved (VMware) & removed (Citrix)
Browser Based Mgmt
Not directly with XenCenter but possible with XenOrchestra (Open Source)

More info: https://bit.ly/1gcmTYN
Yes (vSphere Web Client, HTML5 Web Client)
Limited (SSPs)
Adv. Operation Management
No
Limited (native) - vCenter Operations
Full (with Vendor Add-On: vRealize Operations)
Yes (SC Operations Manager)
Updates and Backup
Hypervisor Upgrades
The XenCenter released with XenServer 7.0 allows updates to be applied to all versions of XenServer (commercial and free)
XenServer 7.1 introduced Live patching
Yes (Update Manager)
NEW
Yes (Cluster Aware Updates, Fabric Updates; Management Servers - NEW)
VM Patching
Yes
Limited (Update Manager)
Yes (WSUS, SCCM, VMST)
Live VM Snapshot
Yes
Yes
Yes (Checkpoint) - NEW: Production Checkpoint
NEW
Backup Integration API
Yes
Yes (vStorage API Data Protection)
Yes (VSS API)
Integrated Backup
No (Retired)
Yes (vSphere Data Protection) - Replication of backup data, granular backup and scheduling
Yes (WSB & DPM incl. Linux VMs - NEW), Azure Backup (New Fee Based Offering)
NEW
Deployment
Automated Host Deployments
No
No
Yes (bare metal through VMM), incl. Storage Spaces Direct - NEW
NEW
VM Templates
Yes
Yes (Content Library)
Yes (now incl. Gen 2 templates)
Tiered VM Templates
vApp
Yes (vApp/OVF)
Yes (Service Templates), guest cluster support - NEW
Host Profiles
No
No
Yes (physical computer profiles)
NEW
Storage Profiles
No
Yes (Storage Based Policy Management)
Yes (Storage Classifications - incl. file shares - NEW)
Other
Resource Pools
No
Limited (host-level only)
Yes (Host Groups)
P2V
No (XenConvert: retired), V2V: yes
Yes (vCenter Converter)
No (use down-level VMM versions)
Self Service Portal
No (Web Self Service: retired)
No
Yes (VMM console, Service Manager, Azure Pack, Azure Stack -NEW)
NEW
Orchestration / Workflows
Yes (Workflow Studio)
Yes (vRealize Orchestrator)
Yes (SC Orchestrator, SC Service Mgr)
Security
Direct Inspect APIs and Basic (NetScaler - Fee-Based Add-On)
Yes (ESXi Firewall, vShield Endpoint)
Windows Security, Hyper-V Extensible Switch (DNSSEC, PVLANs, port ACLs, BitLocker etc., Shield VM - NEW)
NEW
Systems Management
Yes (API / SDKs, CIM)
vSphere’s REST API, PowerCLI, vSphere CLI, ESXCLI, Datacenter CLI
Yes (WMI + PowerShell)
Network and Storage
60%
86%
58%
Storage
Supported Storage
DAS, SAS, iSCSI, NAS, SMB, FC, FCoE, openFCoE
DAS, NFS, FC, iSCSI, FCoE (HW&SW), vFRC, SDDC