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2nd 1st 5th
Total SCORE
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Pros
  • + Not Specified
  • + mature and feature-rich offering
  • + great ecosystem & support
  • + skills prevelant
  • + XenServer it is OpenSource based
  • + It is highly optimized for XenApp and XenDesktop workloadsLeader in virtual delivery of 3D professional graphics
Cons
  • - Not Specified
  • - needs clear strategy for public cloud future
  • - comprehensive capability but can become expensive
  • - NSX leading SDN solution but skills scarce
  • - Less features in free edition. See http://bit.ly/2ddQiVL
  • - less general purpose; specialized (EUC, cloud)
User Reviews
Details (by section) Expand All Data
General
60%
86%
58%
Content
Content Creator
WhatMatrix
THE VIRTUALIST
The VIRTUALIST (Gica Livada) and Enzo Raso (Citrix)
Assessment
Overview
WS 2016 + SC 2016 (Standard)  - Click Here For Overview
vSphere 6.5 Standard - Click Here For 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
Maturity
Release Dates - W2016, SC2016: October 2016 (initial Hyper-V: Jun 08, SCVMM Sep 08)
NEW
Release Dates:
vSphere 6.5 : November 15th 2016
XenServer 7.5 Release date May 2018
Market Position
Niche Quadrant (behind VMware and MS)
Pricing
Virtualization
Standard: $882 for 16 physical cores.
NEW
Std: $995/socket + S&S:$273 (B) or $323 (Prod);
Std + Ops Mgmt: $1995 / socket + S&S:$419 (B) or $499 (Prod)
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.
Management
System Center 2016 Datacenter: $3,607 or Standard $1,323 per managed endpoint (up to 16 physical cores)
NEW
$5,995(Std) + $1,259(B) or $1,499 (P)
Free (XenCenter)
Bundle/Kit Pricing
Vmware switch offer until July 2017
NEW
yes
Yes
Guest OS Licensing
yes - up to two virtual OSEs with Standard (Windows Server vms)
No
No
VM Mobility and HA
60%
86%
58%
VM Mobility
Live Migration of VMs
Yes (Unlimited Concurrent, Shared Nothing; new compression & SMB3 options)
Yes vMotion
- Cross vSwitch vMotion Only
Yes XenMotion
Migration Compatibility
Yes (Processor Compatibility)
Yes (EVC)
Yes (Heterogeneous Pools)
Maintenance Mode
Yes
Yes
NEW
Yes
Automated Live Migration
Yes - Dynamic Optimization (CPU, mem, disk I/O, Net I/O) and VM Load Balancing
NEW
No
Yes Workload Balancing
Power Management
Yes - Power Optimization
No
Yes Workload Balancing
Storage Migration
Yes (Live and Shared Nothing)
Yes (Live Storage vMotion)
Yes (Storage XenMotion)
HA/DR
Cluster Size
64 nodes / 8000 vims
max 64 nodes / 8000 vm per cluster
64 hosts / resource pool
NEW
Integrated HA (Restart vm)
Yes (NIC and unmanaged Storage failure detection - Virtual Machine Compute Resiliency - NEW)
NEW
Yes (VMware HA)
NEW
Yes
Automatic VM Reset
Yes (Heartbeat)
Yes (VMware HA)
NEW
No
VM Lockstep Protection
No
Yes (Fault Tolerance) 2 vCPUs.
NEW
No
Application/Service HA
Yes (VM Compute Resiliency)
NEW
No
No
Replication / Site Failover
Hyper-V Replica - Storage Replica
NEW
Yes (vSphere Replication)
DR Orchestration (Vendor Add-On: VMware SRM)
NEW
Integrated Disaster Recovery (no storage array control)
Management
60%
86%
58%
General
Central Management
Yes (System Center 2016 / VMM) 
NEW
Yes (vCenter Server Standard)
NEW
Yes (XenCenter)
Virtual and Physical
Yes (Complete SC mgmt, Fabric Updates, Storage Management)
Limited (plug-ins)
Limited (plug-ins)
RBAC / AD-Integration
Yes (SCVMM)
Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts)
Yes (hosts/XenCenter)
Cross-Vendor Mgmt
Improved (VMware) & removed (Citrix)
vRealize Automation (Vendor Add-On)
No (native)
Yes (Vendor Add-On: CloudPlatform)
Browser Based Mgmt
Limited (SSPs)
Yes (vSphere Web Client, HTML5 Web Client)
Not directly with XenCenter but possible with XenOrchestra (Open Source)

More info: https://bit.ly/1gcmTYN
Adv. Operation Management
Yes (SC Operations Manager)
Limited (native) - vCenter Operations
Full (with Vendor Add-On: vRealize Operations)
No
Updates and Backup
Hypervisor Upgrades
Yes (Cluster Aware Updates, Fabric Updates; Management Servers - NEW)
Yes (Update Manager)
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
VM Patching
Yes (WSUS, SCCM, VMST)
Limited (Update Manager)
Yes
Live VM Snapshot
Yes (Checkpoint) - NEW: Production Checkpoint
NEW
Yes
Yes
Backup Integration API
Yes (VSS API)
Yes (vStorage API Data Protection)
Yes
Integrated Backup
Yes (WSB & DPM incl. Linux VMs - NEW), Azure Backup (New Fee Based Offering)
NEW
Yes (vSphere Data Protection) - Replication of backup data, granular backup and scheduling
No (Retired)
Deployment
Automated Host Deployments
Yes (bare metal through VMM), incl. Storage Spaces Direct - NEW
NEW
No
No
VM Templates
Yes (now incl. Gen 2 templates)
Yes (Content Library)
Yes
Tiered VM Templates
Yes (Service Templates), guest cluster support - NEW
Yes (vApp/OVF)
vApp
Host Profiles
Yes (physical computer profiles)
NEW
No
No
Storage Profiles
Yes (Storage Classifications - incl. file shares - NEW)
Yes (Storage Based Policy Management)
No
Other
Resource Pools
Yes (Host Groups)
Limited (host-level only)
No
P2V
No (use down-level VMM versions)
Yes (vCenter Converter)
No (XenConvert: retired), V2V: yes
Self Service Portal
Yes (VMM console, Service Manager, Azure Pack, Azure Stack -NEW)
NEW
No
No (Web Self Service: retired)
Orchestration / Workflows
Yes (SC Orchestrator, SC Service Mgr)
Yes (vRealize Orchestrator)
Yes (Workflow Studio)
Security
Windows Security, Hyper-V Extensible Switch (DNSSEC, PVLANs, port ACLs, BitLocker etc., Shield VM - NEW)
NEW
Yes (ESXi Firewall, vShield Endpoint)
Direct Inspect APIs and Basic (NetScaler - Fee-Based Add-On)
Systems Management
Yes (WMI + PowerShell)
vSphere’s REST API, PowerCLI, vSphere CLI, ESXCLI, Datacenter CLI
Yes (API / SDKs, CIM)
Network and Storage
60%
86%
58%
Storage
Supported Storage
SMB3, virtual FC, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, FC, FCoE; shared vhdx - NEW Storage Spaces Direct
NEW
DAS, NFS, FC, iSCSI, FCoE (HW&SW), vFRC, SDDC