Comparision Citrix Xen 5.5 and Vsphere

[meistermn]

Is anyone testing citrix xen 5.5 essentials versus vsphere enterprise (plus).

1.) Tests about security

2.) Which benchmarks do you use (only syntethic versus real)

Benchmark Test : Density , CPU, Mem troughput, Network throughput ,Disk throuput / IOPS, Latency test, real filecopy tests , microbenchmarks , functionality test e.g. drs ,ha, fault-toleranz, workflow creating, anymore

[meistermn]

No one ?

Why choose VMware?

[DLeid]

Thanks for the links.

I have been monitoring this thread for the comparision results.

I think those links tell me what I needed to know.

If you find this or any other information helpful or correct, please consider awarding points.

[meistermn]

some more infos

A free hypervisor alone is not a solution :

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/feature.asp?contentID=1686939

Features include at no cost	Citrix XenServer	VMware ESXi
Max virtual CPUs	8	4
Windows® and Linux guests	P	P
Unlimited servers, VMs, memory	P	P
P2V &V2V conversion	P	P
Shared SAN and NAS Storage	P	P
Centralized multi-server management	P
Resilient distributed management architecture	P
Live motion	P
Shared VM template library	P
Centralized configuration management	P
Virtual infrastructure patch management	P
Intelligent initial VM placement	P
Intelligent Server maintenance mode	P
Fine-grained CPU resource controls	P
How-swappable disks and NICs	P

[meistermn]

Citrix Enterprise feature overview:

Feature	XenServer	Essentials for XenServer, Enterprise Edition	Essentials for XenServer, Platinum Edition
Native 64-bit Xen hypervisor
Windows and Linux guests
Unlimited servers, VMs, and CPUs
XenCenter management console
Multi-server management
XenMotion live migration
Historical performance reporting
E-mail alerting for performance and errors
High availability
Integrated storage management with StorageLinkTM
Workflow orchestration
Dynamic provisioning services (virtual only)
Dynamic provisioning services (physical and virtual)
Automated lab management
Stage Management

[meistermn]

Virtual Lab Automation (VLA) and VMLogix LabManager

[meistermn]

nice articel from scott

[meistermn]

Nice IBM Paper:

Citrix Xen Server Versions:

Feature	VMware Equivalent	XenServer (Free of Charge)	Essentials for XenServer, Enterprise Edition	Essentials for XenServer, Platinum Edition
Native 64-bit Xen hypervisor, Supporting Unlimited Windows and Linux guests VMs, and CPUs	ESX
XenCenter management console	VCenter
XenMotion live migration	VMotion
Historical performance reporting, with E-mail alerting for performance and errors
High availability	HA
Integrated storage management with StorageLinkTM	Storage Vmotion
Workflow orchestration	Site Recovery Manager
Dynamic provisioning services (virtual only)
Dynamic provisioning services (physical and virtual)
Automated lab management	Lab Manager
Stage Management

[meistermn]

Although the preformance results are of interrest:

.

I got a quote today for the Citrix Essentials offerings, at the moment it's £1,360 for Enterprise and £1,680 for Platinum.

For this price you get the following, which on first viewing is pretty good, especially when you consider the Lab and Stage management features which are separate products within the VMware product range "

As indicated by the title of this blog post Citrix were advertising a special offer around the purchase of Citrix Essentials 5.5 starting in Q3 this year. If you are willing to share with Citrix your VMware SNS renewal quotes they will give you a price for Citrix Essentials that matches or betters the price of your VMware renewal. Technically resulting in you paying out no more than you were going to be spending from your budget anyway. now you've just got to find the resource to rip an replace your existing virtual infrastructure (joking!). I'd suggest following up with your Citrix sales representative for more information as I can't find anything official on the Citrix web site, it was however mentioned on 4 different occasions during iforum so it must be true.

In all seriousness though, I spoke to people at the iforum who were existing VMware customers like me. One guy had a project to add three additional ESX hosts, he reckoned he could do 3 XenServer hosts with the same functionality for the cost of one ESX host. He was off to download it and set it up in their company lab the next day, I have to say I can see why, especially with company budgets constrained the way they are.

I'm going to get my home lab setup with XenServer so I can do a few more blog posts on some of the interesting features such as Storage Link and the distributed management database. I'm genuinely intrigued now.

If you want to read a little bit more about the usage of XenServer in the real world, you might want to read about Tesco's use of XenServer to virtualise 1,500 servers. Alternatively you might want to read the following performance review of hyper-v, ESX 3.5 and XenServer to understand a little more about how they compare (vSphere obviously tilts the performance balance back in VMware's favour).

"From my perspective citrix essentials platinum for 1680 EUR gives you the Lab and Stagement feature, for what you have to pay separate by vmware. Vmware Vsphere enterprise , Lab manager and stagemanager is to pricy.

[meistermn]

CItrix Costs versus Vsphere costs. Finding the truth

Citrix Essentials Enterprise (1 license = 1 server):

• XenServer - 2 licenses = 0$ (3 lic = 0$)

• Essentials Enterprise - 2 lic = 5500$ (3 lic = 8250$)

• Essentials Preffered Support (optional) - 1 lic = 1500$

• Total cost = 7000$ or 9750$ for 3 servers

• Total cost without support = 5500$ or 8250$ for 3 servers

- VMware vSphere 4 Standard Edition (1 lic = 1 CPU):

• vSphere 4 Standard - 4 licenses = 3180$ (6 lic = 4770$)

• vShpere 4 Standard 1y Gold Support - 4 lic = 1092$ (6 lic = 1638$)

• vCenter 4 Foundation - 1 lic = 1495$

• vCenter 4 1y Gold Support - 1 lic = 545$

• Total cost = 6312$ or 8448$ for 3 servers

• Support is mandatory

- VMware vSphere 4 Essentials Plus Bundle (1 lic = 1 CPU)

• Licenses for 3 hosts plus vCenter Server for Essentials plus 1y Gold Support = 3624$

• Total cost = 3624$ for 2 or 3 servers

[meistermn]

Cost comparision: http://community.citrix.com/blogs/citrite/desktop2020/2009/06/30/CitrixEssentials5.5andXenServer5.5-TheBestPlatformfor+XenDesktop

XenServer 5 (as part of XenDesktop Enterprise Edition)		VMware vSphere 4.0 - 20 Servers
Capabilities: Multi-server management, resource pools, XenMotion, HA, workload balancing		Capabilities: Multi-server management, resource pools, vMotion, HA, DRS
20x Citrix XenServer	Included	vCenter Server + 3 Year Gold Support	$7,670
20x Essentials for XenServer, Enterprise	Included	vCenter Server Heartbeat, 3 Yr Gold Support	$15,347
1 Year support contract	$1,500	vSphere Enterprise, 3 Yr Gold Support : (40 processors)	$176,608
Total 3-year cost	$4,500	Total 3-year cost	$199,625

I agree with comments on this website, that with esx you get a higher density. Does citrix have transparent pagesharing on their roadmap this year ?