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VMware ESX 2 vs. MS Virtual Server?

Posted by Cliff on from the hare-vs-the-gorilla dept.

Saqib Ali asks: "I m sure most of you have heard that Connectix, the makers of Virtual PC/Server, have been acquired by Microsoft. Based on the technology acquired, MS has developed a new product called Microsoft Virtual Server, using which a Windows Server 2003 based server can run multiple operating systems concurrently. I am doing a preliminary analysis of using MS Virtual Server vs. running VMware ESX Server 2.0 on Clustered Linux Environment. Both solutions offer a way of running multiple OSes in a virtual environment using the same underlying OS (Windows 2003 or Linux). Of course, running VMware on Linux, offers the stability, scalability, and reliability of Linux, and also prevents a business form being locked into one single vendor. However running Microsoft Virtual Server does have some merits from a business perspective (vendor viability, reduced licensing costs etc). Any thoughts on merits/benefits/downside of using either of the technology stacks?"

3 of 68 comments (clear)

  1. ESX does not run under linux by QuantumG · · Score: 3, Informative

    it has it's own BSD style kernel which does more sophisticated (fair) scheduling and memory management (on-demand page sharing between VMs). People think it's linux based because it has the GNU toolchain ported to it (ie, they're morons).

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
    1. Re:ESX does not run under linux by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Vmware ESX server does not rely on Linux kernel modules for hardware support. It does rely on ESX kernel modules for hardware support.

      The console OS is Linux and can see any device Linux is capable of seeing with the proper driver. However, if the ESX kernel does not support your device (RAID controller, NIC, etc.) you can't assign it for use by virtual machines. Currently ESX server only supports a small subset of devices in comparison to Linux. The ESX kernel does use the kernel module paradigm, but that is as far as the similarity goes.

      The console OS (Redhat Linux) serves primarily as a bootloader for the ESX kernel. It does run processes which aid in I/O for Remote Console sessions among other things, but that's it. The ESX kernel sees the console OS as just another virtual machine.

  2. Re:VMWare works by foooo · · Score: 3, Informative

    VMWare works, but Microsoft is trying to make you buy a license for every virtual image on the machine.

    so.... VMWare($300) on top of windows (at least $100) and
    on top of VMWare copies of windows (at least $100) and any copies of office or anything like that (X dollars) TIMES the number of virtual machines that you have saved.

    Or you could run virtual images of linux or whatever.

    But if you bought VMWare with the purpose of being able to inexpensively and quickly deal with multiple Images (for corporate imaging testing or what have you) or multiple MS operating systems.. then they try and rope you into a MSDN license.

    It's nutty