what's the new craze?, in the Virtualization + Server-Based Computing forum on BrianMadden.com

I'm still running MPS4 on Win2K with CAG 4.2 and Web Interface 4.2.
Obviously I'm waaaay behind since Xenapps came out. I'm wondering if I should definitely upgrade to Citrix Xenserver or stay with what I have now for the time being?

I'm also wondering what the differences are between VMware and Citrix Xenserver?
I thought Vmware was geared more towards the consolidation of multiple servers into one using hypervisor virtualizations (hosting many OS's on one machine), whereas Citrix was more for just application virtualization? Why is everyone comparing the two?

Hi Jackson,

You need to differentiate between XenApp (new name for Citrix Presentation Server) and XenServer (based on the Xen hypervisor):

http://www.citrix.com/english/ps2/products/product.asp?contentid=186

http://www.citrix.com/English/ps2/products/product.asp?contentID=683148

Brian and others have also written many articles on this site if you search for these keywords.

Cheers,

Jackson

Allan has given you the pointers to resolve your VM questions, but to answer the first part.

Stick with 4.0 for now unless you want features that are available only in XenApp 4.5, and plan on migrating to either XenApp 5.0 on 2008 server or 4.5 on 2003 in Q1 09.

But remember that CPS 4.0 goes end of maintenance June 09 (i.e. no hot fixes except for security issues) and end of life December 09 (no support, no hot fixes of any kind), so if support and patching is important for you you MUST be off by them


Simon

If you want to utilize enterprise High Availability, DRS and VMotion features from VI3.5 than VMware is a great choice for you because no one can compete with this features. Xen Enterprise has same features but not even close to VMware as far as performance and redundancy goes. You can check out more details on VMTN forum and go from there. Both ESX 3.5i and Xen Hypervisor are free so you can test them out to see more details. If you want cheaper and Linux base guest OS, than Xen should be okay for you.