VMware, XenSource Join Forces For Linux

porjo writes "Peace has been established on at least one front: XenSource and VMware are working together to improve virtualization in the Linux kernel. Their original disagreement has been displaced by a commitment to work on a solution together, says Simon Crosby, CTO of XenSource, the company that builds products around Xen virtualization software. The two are trying to come up with a common approach to virtualization support in the Linux kernel. [snip] The work now under way would let hypervisors from Microsoft, VMware, and Xen work together in the same data center. Under such a scenario, it would be possible for a Xen virtual machine, trapped on a piece of failing hardware, to be automatically moved over to a VMware hypervisor on another piece of hardware."

Comments

Good thing but..

[Devv]

It is great to see that big software manufacturers can help each other and build up a better product. Though, with all my reservations, I might not know enough about this debate to say this. I will do that anyway and you can read it the way you want. Consider the fact that every company making a major product would start helping each other. As far as this drive the development further it's great! This might though carry the risks for having an oligopoly driving the prices forward which is not so great. Also consider the fact that the companies that have the most use for virtualization probably have such a great win in testing that they could pay high prices for a product worth less. All this brings virtualization away from people who just need it for private use. I should also tell you that I don't even know in what extent these products do cost anything.

Re:Which systems support Windows clients?

[daverabbitz]

I have bought a $6k box for work to run xen. The results were incredibly disappointing. The para-virtualization is lightning quick, but the HVM is crap.

GFX: The Graphics emulation is incredibly slow (on par with Qemu some of the time, other times slower). VNC display driver has serious mouse issues (this could be solved by using a touch screen emulation, but I don't believe there is one yet.

Sound: Not tested. it's a server after all.

Network: Only emulates PCnet32 and NE2000PCI NIC's, for some reason rightly or wrongly it enforces 10Mbps data rates, same as real cards. Not very useful for virtualizing a Windows server. This is pretty much the biggest killer.

HDD: Performance sucks. this isn't so much of an issue as you can just install an iSCSI initiator in the HVM and connect it directly to your SAN.

So while I *really* want to use Xen, it looks like I'm going to have to go back to the current way we're doing things (VMWare on Linux).

Oh, and I can't run VMWare on Xen outside an HVM, or inside one because of the above performance issues.