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I’m starting to research for a virtual machine software to use in my office
I found a pretty strong list off of Wikipedia, but I’m wondering if there’s any other more legitimate lists available? Or possibly a list of software that is better for use in mid-sized manufacturing companies?
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2 Answers
We have looked and tested multiple Hypervisors and came to the conclusion that the industry leader VMWare is about the only way to go. They have the most features, are a true layer 1 hypervisor, and are fully supportable.
You can download and use the raw VMWare hypervisor "ESXi" for free. This is not a fully featured version but could give you hands on time and works very well in a single server enviroment.
Don't look at that list, you'll get lost and possibly not see the right solution for your enviroment.
There are 3 major virtualization products you should look at - VMware vSphere4, Microsoft HyperV and Citrix XenServer.
VMware is not free (except the free ESXi hypervisor and some OS-based hypervisors which are not bare-metal) and it's licenced by CPU, plus you need vCenter Server management product. There are 3-4 different types of licences that offer you different features and are ranging from 800$ to 3500$ per CPU. VMware is very popular in larger business critical enviroments, but they offer some SMB bundles like vSphere4 Essentials and Essentials Plus. VMware ESXi is a free product, but it can't be managed with vCenter Server until a vSphere4 licence is bought. There is a free mgmt utility for it called The VESI (www.thevesi.org).
Other product is Microsoft HyperV, it's free and offers some nice features found in VMware Advanced licence (cca. 2300$/CPU) like live migration of virtual machines, HA clustering, memory balooning, etc... Microsoft offers some management utilities for HyperV (SCVMM and 3 others) but they are not free... For managing HyperV you could use free Citrix XenEssentials for HyperV Express or non-free VM6Software VMex which offers even more capabilities (HA, live migration, virtual desktop, easy management, etc) for cca. 3500$ per host (no matter how many CPU's or cores).
Citrix XenServer is the third product and it's also free of charge... But I haven't found free management product for it...
Those three hypervisors are all bare-metal and can be installed directly on hardware. For installing VMware you'll need to check their HCL (hardware compatibility list) to check if your server is supported. For HyperV and XenServer it doesn't matter, you can install it on anything that has got drivers.
Looking at performance and capabilities - VMware is the absolute leader, but others are catching up in SMB business...
Now, if you could tell us more about your enviroment, we could advise you which is the best product for you... :)
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