Virtualization comparison & reviews

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Pros
  • + mature and feature-rich offering
  • + great ecosystem & support
  • + skills prevelant
  • + Not Specified
  • + not specified
Cons
  • - needs clear strategy for public cloud future
  • - comprehensive capability but can become expensive
  • - NSX leading SDN solution but skills scarce
  • - Not Specified
  • - not specified
User Reviews
Details (by section) Expand All Data
General
60%
86%
58%
Content
Content Creator
THE VIRTUALIST
WhatMatrix
The VIRTUALIST and Enzo Raso (Citrix)
Assessment
Overview
vSphere 6.7 with Operations Management Enterprise Plus - Click Here For Overview
Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 (Free) + System Center 2012 R2 (Fee-based!) - Click Here For Overview
XenServer 7.1 Enterprise Edition includes features that are not available in the Standard Edition, focused on enterprise customers needs, as well as Citrix support:
- Live patching
- Conversion manager for vSphere
- Accelerate Citrix Provisioning Services performance

For Standard vs Enterprise edition, please check: http://bit.ly/2ddQiVL
NEW
Maturity
Release Dates:
vSphere 6.7 : April 17th 2018
Release Dates - WS2012R2, SC2012R2: Oct 2013, WS2012: Sep 2012, SC2012 Apr 2012 - SP1 Jan 2013 (initial Hyper-V: Jun 08, SCVMM Sep 08)
XenServer 7.1 Release date February 2017
Pricing
Virtualization
OM Ent+ :
$4,275/socket + S&S 1Y: $897 (B) or $1,068 (Prod)
Free Download
Open Source (free) or two commercial editions, pricing for Standard Edition is: Annual: $695 / socket, Perpetual: $1525/ socket - both including 1 year of software maintenance.
Management
$5,835(Std) + $1,224(B) or $1,458 (P)
Free: PowerShell, Server Manager, MMCs
Fee: System Center 2012 Datacenter: $3,607 or Standard $1,323 per managed endpoint (up to 2 CPU)
Free (XenCenter)
Bundle/Kit Pricing
yes
No
Yes
Guest OS Licensing
No
None
No
VM Mobility and HA
60%
86%
58%
VM Mobility
Live Migration of VMs
Yes (vMotion)
Yes (Unlimited Concurrent, Shared Nothing; new compression & SMB3 options)
Yes XenMotion
Migration Compatibility
Yes (EVC)
Yes (Processor Compatibility)
Yes (Heterogeneous Pools)
Maintenance Mode
Yes
Yes
Yes
Automated Live Migration
Yes (DRS) - CPU, Mem
Yes - Dynamic Optimization (CPU, mem, disk I/O, Net I/O)
Yes Workload Balancing
NEW
Power Management
Yes (DPM)
Yes - Power Optimization
Yes Workload Balancing
NEW
Storage Migration
Yes (Live Storage vMotion)
Yes (Live and Shared Nothing)
Yes (Storage XenMotion)
NEW
HA/DR
Cluster Size
max 64 nodes / 8000 vm per cluster
64 nodes / 8000 vims
16 hosts / resource pool
Integrated HA (Restart vm)
Yes (VMware HA)
Yes (NIC and unmanaged Storage failure detection - NEW)
Yes
Automatic VM Reset
Yes (VMware HA)
Yes (Heartbeat)
No
VM Lockstep Protection
Yes (Fault Tolerance) 8 vCPUs. 128 GB RAM.
NEW
No
No
Application/Service HA
App HA
Yes
No
Replication / Site Failover
Yes (vSphere Replication)
DR Orchestration (Vendor Add-On: VMware SRM)
Hyper-V Replica (extended replication and replication frequency - NEW)
Integrated Disaster Recovery (no storage array control)
Management
60%
86%
58%
General
Central Management
Yes (vCenter Server Standard)
Yes (System Center 2012R2 / VMM)
Yes (XenCenter)
Virtual and Physical
Limited (plug-ins)
Yes (Complete SC mgmt, Fabric Updates, Storage Management)
Limited (plug-ins)
NEW
RBAC / AD-Integration
Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts)
NEW
Yes (SCVMM)
Yes (hosts/XenCenter)
Cross-Vendor Mgmt
vRealize Automation (Vendor Add-On)
Improved (VMware & Citrix Virtualization)
No (native)
Yes (Vendor Add-On: CloudPlatform)
Browser Based Mgmt
Yes (vSphere Web Client, HTML5 Web Client)
Limited (SSPs)
Not directly with XenCenter but possible with XenOrchestra (Open Source)

More info: http://bit.ly/2m7FVIG
Adv. Operation Management
Yes (VMware vRealize Operations)
Yes (SC Operations Manager)
No
Updates and Backup
Hypervisor Upgrades
Yes (Update Manager)
Yes (Cluster Aware Updates, Fabric Updates; Management Servers - NEW)
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
NEW
VM Patching
Limited (Update Manager)
Yes (WSUS, SCCM, VMST)
Yes
Live VM Snapshot
Yes
Yes (Checkpoint) - incl. live export - NEW
Yes
Backup Integration API
Yes (vStorage API Data Protection)
Yes (VSS API)
Limited
Integrated Backup
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)
No (Retired)
Deployment
Automated Host Deployments
Yes (Auto Deploy)
Yes (bare metal through VMM), incl. Scale-Out File Server Cluster - NEW
No
VM Templates
Yes (Content Library)
Yes (now incl. Gen 2 templates)
Yes
Tiered VM Templates
Yes (vApp/OVF)
Yes (Service Templates), guest cluster support - NEW
vApp
Host Profiles
Yes (Host Profiles)
Yes (physical computer profiles)
No
Storage Profiles
Yes (Storage Based Policy Management)
Yes (Storage Classifications - incl. file shares - NEW)
No
Other
Resource Pools
Yes
Yes (Host Groups)
No
P2V
Yes (vCenter Converter)
No (use down-level VMM versions)
No (XenConvert: retired), V2V: yes
Self Service Portal
No (native)
Yes (with Vendor Add-On: vCloud Suite, vRealize Automation)
Yes (VMM console, App Controller, Service Manager/CSPP, Azure Pack - NEW)
No (Web Self Service: retired)
Orchestration / Workflows
Yes (vRealize Orchestrator)
Yes (SC Orchestrator, SC Service Mgr)
Yes (Workflow Studio)
Security
Yes (ESXi Firewall, vShield Endpoint, VM Encryption)
NEW
Windows Security, Hyper-V Extensible Switch (DNSSEC, PVLANs, port ACLs, BitLocker etc.)
Direct Inspect APIs and Basic (NetScaler - Fee-Based Add-On)
Systems Management
vSphere’s REST API, PowerCLI, vSphere CLI, ESXCLI, Datacenter CLI
Yes (WMI + PowerShell)
Yes (API / SDKs, CIM)
Network and Storage
60%
86%
58%
Storage
Supported Storage
DAS, NFS, FC, iSCSI, FCoE (HW&SW), vFRC, SDDC
NEW
SMB3, virtual FC, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, FC, FCoE; shared vhdx - NEW
DAS, SAS, iSCSI, NAS, SMB, FC, FCoE, openFCoE
SAN Multipath
Yes (enhanced APD and PDL) PDL AutoRemove