XenServer is another key player in the virtualization market. XenServer that is a product of Citrix, is built off a Xen hypervisor that is another cost-effective approach if your organization needs to incorporate virtualization into your environment. XenServer has full support for Windows and the Linux operation systems and is based on a pricing scale of a per server basis. While still having some unique features of their own, they still are amongst everyone else with offering live migration, snapshots, virtual switching, and management consoles.
What sets XenServer apart from a competitor like VMware is its cost per server compared to per processor. Also, XenServer promises to increase your server performance and reduce your power consumption by taking what could be several servers and consolidating them into one or two Hypervisors. This just allows for endless possibilities for expansion and taking your data center or current IT infrastructure to a whole new level of possibilities.
There are a few editions that XenServer offers: Free, Advanced, Enterprise, and Platinum. The free version has minimal features for management, alerting, switching, and live migration, but as you scale up to the higher levels, you begin to get features such as:
Automated VM Protection Allows for simple VM backup and recovery through snapshots Allows for simple VM
Live migration with Storage XenMotion Ability to move live machines and ensure minimal downtime
Alerting Notifications for virtual machine to easily troubleshoot performance issues
Reporting Drill down capability to look at past/current performance of a virtual machine
Xen Center Management Console A central location to manage virtual machines, storage pools, network settings
Management integration with System Center Virtual Machine Manager Allows you to full integrate with System Center VMM for a more centralized environment if you have multiple virtual environments.
Stoarge Link Gives a “one stop shop” for storage managers to utilize their current data management techniques/tools and integrate with all virtual or physical servers