As more virtualization solutions enter the market, they fall into one of two categories.
Some virtualization products are designed either to run on top of a specific operating system or (even if they technically run on bare metal) are configured as a service of a specific operating system. We will refer to these as "operating system" or "OS-centric" virtualization.
The other category, including Citrix XenServer, are products that are delivered and optimized specifically as virtualization tools. These are managed using tools designed for virtualization, and are typically guest operating system agnostic. We will refer to these as "platform virtualization."
Note that, as an open engine technology, Xen can be used in either way. Linux distributors provide Xen as the virtualization engine in their OS-centric offerings, while Citrix uses it to deliver an optimized, easy-to-implement enterprise virtualization platform.
A quick comparison shows why platform virtualization is the optimal choice for the infrastructure requirements of most IT organizations.
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Optimized to deliver virtualization only – “do one thing and do it well” |
Virtualization is one of many features that challenge OS vendors to integrate
- One of 2000+ packages in RHEL
- Microsoft release and feature delays
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No guest OS bias – equal platform performance, security and ease of use for Windows and Linux |
Built to virtualize the host OS best (Linux on Linux – Windows on Windows)
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Mature, multi-server management tools |
Manages virtualization as a capability of the single server |
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Delivery of legacy workloads on latest hardware |
Designed to virtualize the latest versions | |
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