torn between the two.

[cylent77]

ok so its been like a month of me playing around with vsphere5 and then xenserver5.6/6.

its been a very busy two weeks for each. i try to spend as much time as possible.

I havent delved too deep into a lot of the options.

Feature	ESXI vsphere   5	XENSERVER   5.6/6.0
Speed / Video drivers	Excellent   and with guest  video drivers	Slow/Sluggish   vnc console & no video drivers for guest
Software RAID	Not possible	Excellent   support – works! (Storage repository)
Flash Stick install	Excellent   support – works!	Very   selective and doesn’t work well.
NIC Drivers / speed	Multiple   options for guest driver / fast performance	Only one   driver available with very limited options in guest OS
Bootup speed	OK.   Sometimes likes to hang at odd things.	Fast and   able to disable startup daemons for more speed.
Unified management	Only have   vsphere client. No import ability / export	XENCenter /   multiple server connections + importing/Exporting
Autoboot VM	GUI doable   with ease	No option in   GUI. Doable via ssh.
Pushes to make purchase	None. VMWare   doesn’t bother you at all.	Citrix   throws “Learn more” and “Buy this” in xencenter
Download from anywhere	ESXI allows   you download from any country	Citrix likes   to play the whole “Embargo” game
Community / forums	Good   knowledgeable bunch of people on forums	Like a dead   zone. Forums are almost dead

and thats my table.

i would definately fly with esxi if only it supported software raid0 ... at this time though i'd like to hear some feedback from ya'll .... i am just really lost at this time.

[GaneshNetworks]

Nice job. Expecting more comparisions.

~Ganesh~

[cylent77]

very intesting. hardly any response but one.

the citrix forums guys are always quiet. but why my post like this on their forums everyone was defending xenserver ...

i could care less about defense though. i am more interested in making the negative points positive. for example my most important issue with esxi is raid. i need to accomplish this via software. i tried freenas a virtual machine and i setup iscsi on it. it worked for the most part but its not practical and would cause vsphere to freeze at bootup because it starts to look for the iscsi drive which is a virtual drive and wont be available till its booted.

so then that option is just too much drama. cant someone help me out with this?

vmware -- please allow software raid or at least add the raid tools so i can create a datastore manually on software raid...

edit: i think i'll reinstall vsphere 5 and just put up with no raid. oh well.

[vmroyale]

Hello.

What about using USB for the ESXi install and then using FreeNAS for the VMs?

Good Luck!

[cylent77]

Brian Atkinson wrote:

Hello.

What about using USB for the ESXi install and then using FreeNAS for the VMs?

Good Luck!

sorry i dont understand. i know how to isntall esxi to usb ... and  freenas for the vms? i've tried that. the only option i can deal with is freenas as a virtual machine but thats too much drama.

any other suggestions?

[vmroyale]

You can use the info in kb 2009580 to install ESXi onto USB. It won't really help with your software RAID issue though. The thought was that you could then use FreeNAS on another piece of hardware. Its kind of ugly though, as FreeNAS isn't a supported storage solution.

[mcowger]

some comments:

Bootup speed:  Why does this matter.  For a stable hypervisor (which eSXi certainly is), you wont boot it more than maybe once a quarter, and so the difference of a 3 minutes boot vs. 5 minutes is nothing.  I wouldn't even bother evaluating this.

Unified Management:  Not sure what you mean by this?   vSphere client absolutely supports import of OVFs and you can also export OVFs as well.

Software RAID: Isn't possible, thats true.  But wouldn't you rather use an array designed for it rather than trust mdadm or LVM?

Also, you should add a consideration for:

1) Third party tool & app support

2) Performance (CPU, drive & NIC)

3) Supported API support

[cylent77]

Unified Management:  Not sure what you mean by this?   vSphere client absolutely supports import of OVFs and you can also export OVFs as well.

can you show me where / how to import OVFs? cause i cant find the option.

[mcowger]

From the vSphere client, select File|Deploy OVF Template

[cylent77]

Thank you. it didnt work with files created from xenconvert.

and i am not aware of any utilities from vmware that create ova/ovf ?

[mcowger]

OVFtool:

http://www.vmware.com/resources/techresources/1013

if the image created by XenConvert didn't work, its probably XenConvert's bug, given that VMware wrote the OVF spec

[AureusStone]

Looking through your post history I can see that you are in Iraq and that is why you can't get a RAID card.

If I was you I would look into getting one shipped internationally.  One of the main advantages or a hardware RAID card is that they usually have cache which massively increases performance.  Software RAID is okay, but unless you have hybrid drives for cache the performance will be poor.

I would also never recommend to anyone to store VMs on a RAID0 volume.  The 0 stands for how much you care about your data.