Best Virtualization Solution

mark_smith

I am in process of putting a virtualization plan in place. Wondering, from pure virtualization perspective, which hardware vendor provides the best virtualization solution. Will like to know if any have had any experiences using virtualization on DELL hardware, SUN, HP or IBM. Also wondering, if any of you were able to get a decent discount from any of these hardware or vitualization software vendors. Appreciate your help

SimonD.

Surely it's all subjective?? I have used Dell and HP hardware with both VMware and Hyper-V. I am about to produce a Home Lab with Lenovo TS200's and ESXi.

What I am trying to say is that most hardware vendors now support any of the major virtualisation products (not forgetting Citrix and KVM as well).
As far as hardware vendors, Cisco are starting to hit the market with their UCS solution and that's starting to make really big waves (partnered with either NetApp or EMC and VMware for either the FlexPod or vBlock solutions).

As far as discounts are concerned, you will always find discounts, it just depends on whether you have budget or not and how close to quarter end you are wanting to buy.

SteveO86

First you should decide on a hardware vendor.. IBM, Dell, HP, etc

Then decide on the virtualization method VMWare, Hyper-V, RHEV.

They all have their own advantages and disadvantages. It might also pay to get with any other IT staff you work with to see if they have had any experience in virtualization to see if they are familiar with the technologies, that should also be a deciding factor.

jmritenour

As others have said, there's no "one size fits all" solution. For example, I love, love, love VMWare's vSphere solution for virtualizing the datacenter, but I'm finding I'm not liking it in combination with VMWare View as a desktop virtualization solution now that we're piloting it. Citrix Xen has it beat all to hell in that regard. And while I don't have a lot of hands on with MS Hyper-V in a live environment, I know several people who do, and they say it's a worth competitor to vSphere.

Hardware is the same thing. I work in a primarily Dell shop, but I prefer HP servers myself, because I like their out of band management better than Dell's. And in general, their SANs are way easier to configure than Dell's.

In general, VMWare is probably going to be the most expensive from a total cost of ownership standpoint, due to it's licensing, and the fact that it's got a pretty limited set of (officially supported) hardware it will run on, and the vast majority of it won't come cheap. Xen is a bit more flexible in that regard. Hyper-V, you can install on anything that can run Windows Server 2008.

In closing, I will offer this bit of advice: VMWare and Xen can both be VERY aggressive with pricing when they're competing against each other.

sidsanders

is this strictly x86/x64 in this plan? sun sparc -- zones/ldoms, hp ia64 -- hpvm, ibm power -- powervm, hp parisc -- npar/vpar, ibm mainframe (64bit) -- z/vm

blargoe

What are you wanting to virtualize and why? As others have said, mileage may vary based on what and how much you're doing.

Kalven

It is good that you are opting for virtualization, it really benefits in many ways. Recently, I have opted for storage virtualization through Advanced Systems Group. They have huge list of vendors like VMware, Cisco Systems, Brocade and more that offers virtualization hardware. So you can check all the products in depth and take the final call.

MrAgent

We have a massive (hundreds of servers) virtual server farm here where I work. We use mostly high powered dells, but we also do have a few HPs thrown in there as well.

We use like 95% VMWare and I would say the rest is in Xen.

buff3r0vrfl0w

@jmritenour Hey you seem pretty knowledgeable on the subject .. gotta question for you in regards to desktop virtualization. I currently am playing with esxi and an open-source hypervisor kvm called proxmox.. I really want to get into VDI and have looked into vmware view and xen desktop.. is it possible for a college kid like myself to implement such technology at home? lol I currently use vnc, rdp to get into my vms but the thought of a streamlined desktop astounds me.. I really want to attempt to do this at home even if that means free 60 day trials from vmware or xen.. any thoughts?

MentholMoose

buff3r0vrfl0w wrote: »

@jmritenour Hey you seem pretty knowledgeable on the subject .. gotta question for you in regards to desktop virtualization. I currently am playing with esxi and an open-source hypervisor kvm called proxmox.. I really want to get into VDI and have looked into vmware view and xen desktop.. is it possible for a college kid like myself to implement such technology at home? lol I currently use vnc, rdp to get into my vms but the thought of a streamlined desktop astounds me.. I really want to attempt to do this at home even if that means free 60 day trials from vmware or xen.. any thoughts?

XenDesktop Express is free and a good place to start.
Citrix XenDesktop

buff3r0vrfl0w

sweet is that a bare metal hypervisor? or does it sit on an os? and will I need to implement a PVS? don't think their free... thanks for the reply

MentholMoose

XenDesktop is not a hypervisor. You can use it with certain hypervisors, but it's not a requirement (you can use 100% physical machines if you want). The new XenClient is a type 1 (bare-metal) hypervisor and is included with XD, but it is for local access only (not remote) and only supports certain laptop models.

XD Express is free but lacks some of the features of the paid versions, for example it doesn't include PVS. XD Express will integrate with the free XenServer, but not with the free hypervisors from competitors (for VMware it needs vCenter, for Microsoft it needs SCVMM). There's more info here:
XenDesktop Features and Editions

buff3r0vrfl0w

thanks for the reply , Yea I'm still a noob to all this and it seems like theres so much information to take in.. I thought xen desktop can be installed on bare metal and using xen server can accept streamed desktops.. I got alot of reading to do on the subject.. I really just wanted to implement a streamed desktop to my laptop using a bare metal solution not something on top of a host.. thanks for the info

azjag

mark_smith wrote: »

Also wondering, if any of you were able to get a decent discount from any of these hardware or vitualization software vendors. Appreciate your help

This really comes down to your negotiating skills. As my boss likes to put it, "there are other vendors standing in line that would like to take your place in my datacenter," "that's not good enough" and my personal favorite, "get your commission from your next sale."

MentholMoose

buff3r0vrfl0w wrote: »

thanks for the reply , Yea I'm still a noob to all this and it seems like theres so much information to take in.. I thought xen desktop can be installed on bare metal and using xen server can accept streamed desktops.. I got alot of reading to do on the subject.. I really just wanted to implement a streamed desktop to my laptop using a bare metal solution not something on top of a host.. thanks for the info

That's almost right, just mixed up a bit. XenServer is installed on the bare metal, and the various XenDesktop components get installed into VMs. Using PVS with XD VDI edition and above you can boot desktop VMs from a streamed image. Anyway the Evaluating XenDesktop 5 guide is really helpful for learning all the different components.