Re: [Xen-users] Xen or KVM

[Toens Bueker <toens.bueker@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Mark Schneider <ms@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

>    After playing for over a year with Xen (Xen/XCP/XenServer) and KVM I
>    tend now to use KVM due to low I/O performance of Xen/XCP/XenServer
>    when using HVM. PVMs in Xen have probably a bit better I/O-performance
>    but quite a lot of overhead to manage it with different operating
>    systems (I don't run any MS OS).

[...]

>    The free available version of XCP or XenServer has outdated templates
>    for HVM / PVMs and it looks like that Citrix doesn't really have
>    commercial interesst to improve them. I don't think that it will change
>    in the near future as most active Xen developers are working for
>    Citrix.
>    People like you, me and many others are a kind of unpaid Xen software
>    testers. I can myself invest some of time for testing of free software
>    products and help to impove them if I can use them without all the
>    licensing issues. I was even thinking about buying commercial XenServer
>    ... but due to high costs of the licenses and management costs I
>    decided simply to buy new hardware to have much better performance (DB
>    cluster applications) and more calculatlion power for the same price
>    and less administration overhead.

[...]

>    My current recomendation is currently KVM based on uBuntu 12.04. 

Actually I have slipped out of the "xen game" earlier on with the
appearance of kvm. Just because of the ease of having it in the
mainline kernel.

I just wanted to support the other perspective to the discussion: Before
choosing between two hypervisor-based virtualization solutions you
should decide whether you could use os-based virtualization aka
containers (with openvz) instead. This would spare you a lot of
hassle, which you subscribe to by choosing a hypervisor-based solution. 

Even the best hypervisor on the newest hardware will not give you the
I/O (network- and storagewise), that an os-based virtualization will
give you.

In my opinion, you should choose a solution, which will offer you "the
best of both worlds": OS-based virtualization for the mass of your VMs
and hypervisor-based virtualization for cases, containers can't cover.

That said, have a look at
 - Proxmox (http://www.proxmox.com/products/proxmox-ve) - openvz/kvm
 - SmartOS (http://smartos.org/) - solaris zones/kvm
 - Parallels Server Bare Metal 
(http://www.parallels.com/products/server/baremetal/sp/)
 - does anybody know more solutions along those lines (maybe one including xen)?

by
Töns
-- 
There is no safe distance.

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