COMPUTING: Virtualisation

[Kyuuketsuki]

edit: that XS bap looks usefull too.

Yeah it does ...

OK ... so I killed my ESXi server and "embraced" Xen!

The reason I did so was that I was unable to create templates on ESXi ... you have to buy a license which costs something like $3000. This is understandable from VMWare's POV as they wish to charge for their enterprise class products but hardly suitable for a server used as a home server and test/dev/training and so on.

My first thoughts are as follows:

• Installed with no hardware issues (that wasn't true of ESXi but, to be fair to them, it took me 3 months to get the server to a good ESXi compatible spec and I fully expected Xen would run on kit like that).
  
• Lower footprint ... ESXI memory footprint is around 2Gb, Xen is under 1.
  
• ESXi is faster to power up but since it will typically be running all the time that's no great issue.
  
• Storing ISO images locally on an ESXi server is a doddle, on Xen it seems to require a major configuration change (see below).
  
• Virtual machines don't seem to be as configurable under Xen as ESXi.
  
• Connect as easily to the local client PC as ESXi does.
  
• Connects via XenCentre faster than ESXi (excepting first time when you have to connect the specific host).
  
• XenCentre works as well under Windows 7 as it does under XP ... getting VMWare's VI Client working under Windows 7 is an absolute nightmare (I still haven't succeeded).
  
• Xen requires specific Linux support (a second CD during install or run later via script) whilst ESXi appears to support Linux out-of-the-box.

Right now my particular issue is ISO image storage. With ESXi you can simply browse to wherever you've stored your ISO's and there appear to be no limits on what you can store outside of disk capacity. On Xen ISO's are selected by drop down list so (I presume) there is a fixed location for the ISO's (I think it's called the SR) ... I haven't been able to figure out where that is.

What's more there is some suggestion that the SR is limited to 4GB which, given that the full distro of some Linux ISO's are 4Gb or more, is a bit of an issue.

I don't suppose you know how to do this do you Leo?

Kyu