[COLUG] VMware vs Xen Enterprise

[Duane]

Keith Stewart wrote:
> I'm looking to deploy some VM technologies in a Windows Centric world. 
> Can anyone enlighten me on VMWare vs Xen Enterprise differences? 
> Obviously VMware was first on the block and has become an industry
> standard.  From numbers that I have been looking at I've seen Xen
> Enterprise to be on the cheaper.  I guess what I am looking for is going
> with Xen what will I be missing?

I've only run Xen, not Xen Enterprise and only with linux host and
guests but it works well for what I need because it's open source and
numerous linux distro's ship all the tools and what not needed to make
everything hum nicely.

That said however for Xen to run windows it needs hardware extensions,
in Intel chips this also has to be supported in the bios this often gets
disabled by laptop makers and there is nothing you can do about it, with
AMD chips if the chip supports it that's all that's needed.

I'm pretty sure VMWare can make use of the same hardware extensions, but
for the longest time it used to emulate everything, however there are
others on this list or that go to the lunches that have much more
experience on that front and going to one of the lunches might be more
useful for you.

-- 

Best regards,
 Duane

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