|
|
|
General |
|
|
|
Central Management
Details
|
Yes (vCenter Server Standard)
NEW
vCenter Server Standard
Centralized visibility, proactive management and extensibility for VMware vSphere from a single console
VMware vCenter Server provides a centralized platform for managing your VMware vSphere environments, so you can automate and deliver a virtual infrastructure with confidence.
Available as Windows or Apliance VCSA with embeded or separate PSC.
- Simplified architecture (integrated vCenter Server Appliance, Update Manager included all-in-one), no Windows/SQL licensing
- Native High Availability (HA) of vCenter for the appliance is built-in – Automatic failover (Web Client may require re-login)
- Native Backup and Restore of vCenter appliance – Simplified backup and restore with a new native file-based solution. Restore the vCenter Server configuration to a fresh appliance and stream backups to external storage using HTTP, FTP, or SCP protocols.
- New HTML5-based vSphere Client that is both responsive and easy to use (Based on our new Clarity UI)
|
=BW20
|
Yes (XenCenter)
XenCenter is the central Windows-based multi-server management application (client) for XenServer hosts (including the open source version).
It is different to other management apps (e.g. SCVMM or vCenter) which typically have a management server/management client architecture where the management server holds centralized configuration information (typically in a 3rd party DB). Unlike these management consoles, XenCenter distributes management data across XenServer servers (hosts) in a resource pool to ensure there is no single point of management failure. If a management server (host) should fail, any other server in the pool can take over the management role. XenCenter is essentially only the client.
License administration is done using a separate web interface.
|
|
|
Virtual and Physical
Details
|
Limited (plug-ins)
vCenter and associated components focus on management of virtual infrastructure - physical (non-virtualized) infrastructure will typically require separate management.
However, one can argue that there are increasingly aspects of physical management (bare metal host deploy, vCenter Operations capabilities, vCenter monitoring of physical hosts etc. but the core focusses on the virtual aspects).
Additionally, VMware encourages 3rd party vendors to provide management plug-ins for the vCenter Client (classic or web) that can manage peripheral components of the environment (3rd party storage, servers etc.).
|
=BW21
|
No
XenCenter focusses on managing the virtual infrastructure (XenServer host and the associated virtual machines).
|
|
|
RBAC / AD-Integration
Details
|
Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts)
Platform Services Controller (PSC) deals with identity management for administrators and applications that interact with the vSphere platform.
|
=BW22
|
Yes (hosts/XenCenter)
XenServer 5.6 introduced Role Based Access Control by allowing the mapping of a user (or a group of users) to defined roles (a named set of permissions), which in turn have the ability to perform certain operations. RBAC depends on Active Directory for authentication services. Specifically, XenServer keeps a list of authorized users based on Active Directory user and group accounts. As a result, you must join the pool to the domain and add Active Directory accounts before you can assign roles.
There are 6 default roles: Pool Admin, Pool Operator, VM Power Admin, VM Admin, VM Operator and Read Only - which can be listed and modified using the xe CLI.
Details here: http://bit.ly/2d8uA7C
|
|
|
Cross-Vendor Mgmt
Details
|
vRealize Automation (Vendor Add-On)
VMware vRealize Automation automates the delivery of personalized infrastructure, applications and custom IT services.
This cloud automation software lets you deploy across a multi-vendor hybrid cloud infrastructure, giving you both flexibility and investment protection for current and future technology choices.
http://www.vmware.com/mena/products/vrealize-automation.html
|
=BW23
|
No (native)
Yes (Vendor Add-On: CloudPlatform)
XenCenter only manages Citrix XenServer hosts.
Comments:
- Citrixs Desktop Virtualization product (XenDesktop, fee based add-on) supports multiple hypervisors (ESX, XenServer, Hyper-V)
- The Citrix XenServer Conversion Manager in 6.1 now enables batch import of VMs created with VMware products into a XenServer pool to reduce costs of converting to a XenServer environment).
|
|
|
Browser Based Mgmt
Details
|
Yes (vSphere Web Client, HTML5 Web Client)
vSphere Client - new version of the HTML5-based vSphere Client that will run alongside the vSphere Web Client. The vSphere Client is built right into vCenter Server 6.5 (both Windows and Appliance) and is enabled by default.
vSphere Web Client - improvements will help with the overall user experience. (Home screen reorganized, Performance improvements, Live refresh for power states, tasks.)
|
Yes - Enhanced Web Client (with enhanced SSO), No BDE
No vSphere Big Data Extensions (BDE) supported with this edition!
vSphere 5 introduced a web based (Adobe Flex based) vSphere client interface which makes the access to vCenter platform-independent.
VMware positioned the web client as the core management interface since vSphere 5.1 - largely matching and in many cases superseding functionality of the legacy client (many new features will only be accessible through the web client). If you e.g. want to create one of the new large 62TB vmdks, you can only do that from the web client.
vSphere 5.5. maintains both the legacy and web client (confirming continued use of the legacy client) and has further enhanced the capabilities of the web client itself, as well as the Single Sign On that enables central authentication.
vSphere 5.5 web client enhancements:
- full client support for Mac OS X
- Drag and drop (e.g. drag and drop vm on to hosts)
- new filters and dynamically updated object lists based on those filters
- new recent-items navigation aid
The initial vCenter Single Sign On (SSO) has been improved in 5.5:
- Simplified deployment (single installation model for customers of all sizes)
- Enhanced Microsoft Active Directory integration - The addition of native Active Directory support enables cross-domain authentication with one- and two-way trusts common in multi-domain environments.
- Architecture - Built from the ground up, this architecture removes the requirement of a database and now delivers a multi-master authentication solution with built-in replication and support for multiple tenants.
vSphere Big Data Extensions (BDE) is a new addition in vSphere 5.5 for vSphere Enterprise and Enterprise Plus Editions. BDE is available as a plug-in for the vSphere Web Client.
BDE is a tool that enables administrators to deploy and manage Hadoop clusters on vSphere. It simplifies the provisioning of the infrastructure and software services required for multi-node Hadoop clusters.
It performs the following functions on the virtual Hadoop clusters it manages:
- Creates, deletes, starts, stops and resizes clusters
- Controls resource usage of Hadoop clusters
- Specifies physical server topology information
- Manages the Hadoop distributions available to BDE users
- Automatically scales clusters based on available resources and in response to other workloads on the vSphere cluster
|
No (Web Self Service: retired)
Web Self Service (retired with the launch of XenServer 6.2) was a lightweight portal which allowed individuals to operate their own virtual machines without having administrator credentials to the XenServer host. For large infrastructures, OpenStack is a full orchestration product with far greater capability; for a lightweight alternative, xvpsource.org offers a free open source product.
Related Citrix products have browser based access, for example Storefront (next generation of Web Interface)
|
|
|
Adv. Operation Management
Details
|
Limited (native) - vCenter Operations
Full (with Vendor Add-On: vRealize Operations)
VMware vRealize Operations. Optimize resource usage through reclamation and right sizing, cross-cluster workload placement and improved planning and forecasting. Enforce IT and configuration standards for an optimal infrastructure.
http://www.vmware.com/products/vrealize-operations.html
|
=BW25
|
No
There is no advanced operations management tool included with XenServer.
Additional Info:
XenServers Integration Suite Supplemental Pack allows inter-operation with Systems Center Operations Manager (SCOM). SCOM enables monitoring of host performance when installed on a XenServer host.
Both of these tools can be integrated with your XenServer pool by installing the Integration Suite Supplemental Pack on each of your XenServer hosts.
For virtual desktop environments Citrix EdgeSight is a performance and availability management solution for XenDesktop, XenApp and endpoint systems. EdgeSight monitors applications, devices, sessions, license usage, and the network in real time, allowing users to quickly analyze, resolve, and proactively prevent problems.
EdgeSight is a separate products not included with the XenServer license.
|
|
|
|
Updates and Backup |
|
|
|
Hypervisor Upgrades
Details
|
Yes (Update Manager)
NEW
VMware Update Manager (VUM) is now part of the vCenter Server Appliance.
VUM is using own postgress db, can benefit from VCSA native HA and Backup.
|
=BW38
|
The XenCenter released with XenServer 7.0 allows updates to be applied to all versions of XenServer (commercial and free)
NEW
With XenServer 7.0 patching and updating via the XenCenter management console (enabling automated GUI driven patch application and upgrades) is supported with the comercial and free XenServer versions.
XenServer 6 introduced the Rolling Pool Upgrade Wizard. The Wizard simplifies upgrades to XenServer 6.x by performing pre-checks with a step-by-step process that blocks unsupported upgrades. You can choose between automated or semi-automated, where automated can use a network based XenServer update repository (which you have to create) while semi-automated requires local install media. There are still manual steps required for both approaches and no scheduling functionality or online repository is integrated.
|
|
|
|
Limited (Update Manager)
With vSphere 5 update manager discontinued patching of guest operating systems. It does however provide upgrades of VMware Tools, upgrades of the virtual machine hardware for virtual machines and upgrades of virtual appliances.
|
=BW39
|
No
There is no integrated update engine for guest OS of the virtual machines within Standard Edition of XenServer7.0
|
|
|
|
Yes
VMware snapshots can be taken and committed online (including a snapshot of the virtual machine memory).
|
=BW40
|
yes
You can take regular snapshots, application consistent point-in-time snapshots (requires Microsoft VSS) and snapshots with memory of a running or suspended VM. All snapshot activities (take/delete/revert) can be done while VM is online.
|
|
|
Backup Integration API
Details
|
Yes (vStorage API Data Protection)
vStorage API for Data Protection: Enables integration of 3rd party backup products for centralized backup.
|
=BW41
|
