Re: [Xen-users] KVM vs XEN source

["Nick Couchman" <Nick.Couchman@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Mon, 2011-08-08 at 12:12 -0300, Bruno Steven wrote:
> Hi Dear, 
> 
> I read in foruns , sites especialized that KVM will be better than XEN
> sourcer  on next years. It is possible ?  Somebody has some link that
> bring comparation beteween Xen souce  and KVM  ? 
> 

"Better" is an extremely relative term.  Better at what?  Better by what
standard?  Better features?  Better stability?  Better technical
support?  Better hardware support?  Better guest support?  Better
performance?  Performance and stability are the easiest of those to
measure, but even then you can find different answers.  For features -
is it because one has more features than the other, or includes all of
the features, or has more important features?  Is support better because
the mailing list has more users, or because a commercial organization
backs it, or because it can be installed on a wider variety of hardware?

Furthermore, KVM and Xen are very different products, with different
underlying architectures.  KVM = Kernel Virtual Machine, and is run as
part of the Linux kernel.  Xen is a hypervisor, a kernel in itself that
runs on the hardware and then loads another O/S (dom0) to manage the
hypervisor.  KVM, since it is part of the Linux kernel, is very set on
Linux as the management host.  Xen supports Linux and Solaris, and I
believe one or more of the BSDs, as dom0.  So, for products that are, by
their nature, very different, it's very hard to compare them and
determine which one is "better."

This is the Xen mailing list, so most people here will probably say that
Xen is better.  If you ask on the KVM mailing list, you'll probably get
exactly the opposite consensus.

Asking if one is better, or will be better, than the other is not really
a valid question.  A "better" :-) question is: "Will KVM or Xen be
better for what I'm trying to accomplish?"  That is a very subjective
determination that you will have to make for yourself.  Someone may have
a link for a comparison of the two - Wikipedia might even be a good
place to start.  Probably the easiest way for you to evaluate which one
is better for you is to install them and try them out.  Figure out which
you're more comfortable administering, which one has the features you
need, which one performs better for the guests you're installing, etc.

(Sorry, Bruno, I'm not trying to flame you or anything like that - if
you search through the archives, you'll see that this question gets
asked with decent frequency.  I'm just trying to point out that it isn't
as simple as saying, "Yes, Xen is better than KVM right now, but in two
years KVM will be better than Xen."  It's very complex, and does not
have any easy answer.  Of course, because I'm part of the Xen mailing
list/community, and because I run Xen on a decent number of servers,
it's simple: Xen is better than KVM!! :-)

-Nick



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