Virtualization comparison & reviews

Summary
Rank
3rd 2nd 5th
Score
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User Reviews
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Analysis expand by Roman Macek Romain Serre
Gica Livada
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General expand
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  • Fully Supported
  • Limitation
  • Not Supported
  • Information Only
Pros
  • + mature and feature-rich offering
  • + great ecosystem & support
  • + skills prevelant
  • + pending
  • + pending
Cons
  • - needs clear strategy for public cloud future
  • - comprehensive capability but can become expensive
  • - NSX leading SDN solution but skills scarce
  • - pending
  • - pending
  Content  
  •  
Content Creator
THE VIRTUALIST
WhatMatrix
The VIRTUALIST and Enzo Raso (Citrix)
  Assessment  
  •  
Overview
vSphere 6.5 Standard - Click Here For Overview
WS 2019  - Click Here For Overview
XenServer 7.1 Enterprise Edition includes features that are not available in the Standard Edition, focused on enterprise customers needs, as well as Citrix support:
- Live patching
- Conversion manager for vSphere
- Accelerate Citrix Provisioning Services performance

For Standard vs Enterprise edition, please check: http://bit.ly/2ddQiVL
NEW
  •  
Maturity
Release Dates:
vSphere 6.7 : April 17th 2018
Release Dates - W2016 October 2019 (initial Hyper-V: Jun 08)
NEW
XenServer 7.1 Release date February 2017
  Pricing  
  •  
Virtualization
Std: $939/socket + S&S:$257 (B) or $305 (Prod);
Std + Ops Mgmt: $1995 / socket + S&S:$419 (B) or $499 (Prod)
Standard: $750 for 16 physical cores.
Open Source (free) or two commercial editions, pricing for Standard Edition is: Annual: $695 / socket, Perpetual: $1525/ socket - both including 1 year of software maintenance.
  •  
Management
$5,835(Std) + $1,224(B) or $1,458 (P)
System Center 2019 Datacenter: $3,607 or Standard $1,323 per managed endpoint (up to 16 physical cores). Windows Admin Center - NEW (Free), Microsoft Azure
NEW
Free (XenCenter)
  •  
Bundle/Kit Pricing
yes
Windows Server 2019 standard
Yes
  •  
Guest OS Licensing
yes - up to two virtual OSEs with Standard (Windows Server vms)
No
VM Mobility and HA expand
0%
0%
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  VM Mobility  
  •  
Live Migration of VMs
Yes vMotion
- Cross vSwitch vMotion Only
Yes (Unlimited Concurrent, Shared Nothing; new compression & SMB3 options)
Yes XenMotion
  •  
Migration Compatibility
Yes (EVC)
Yes (Processor Compatibility)
Yes (Heterogeneous Pools)
  •  
Maintenance Mode
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Automated Live Migration
No
Yes - Dynamic Optimization (CPU, mem, disk I/O, Net I/O) and VM Load Balancing
Yes Workload Balancing
NEW
  •  
Power Management
No
Yes - Power Optimization
Yes Workload Balancing
NEW
  •  
Storage Migration
Yes (Live Storage vMotion)
Yes (Live and Shared Nothing)
Yes (Storage XenMotion)
NEW
  HA/DR  
  •  
Cluster Size
max 64 nodes / 8000 vm per cluster
64 nodes / 8000 vims
16 hosts / resource pool
  •  
Integrated HA (Restart vm)
Yes (VMware HA)
Yes (NIC and unmanaged Storage failure detection - Virtual Machine Compute Resiliency)
Yes
  •  
Automatic VM Reset
Yes (VMware HA)
Yes (Heartbeat)
No
  •  
VM Lockstep Protection
Yes (Fault Tolerance) 2 vCPUs.
NEW
No
No
  •  
Application/Service HA
No
Yes (VM Compute Resiliency)
No
  •  
Replication / Site Failover
Yes (vSphere Replication)
DR Orchestration (Vendor Add-On: VMware SRM)
Hyper-V Replica - Storage Replica
Integrated Disaster Recovery (no storage array control)
Management expand
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  General  
  •  
Central Management
Yes (vCenter Server Standard)
Yes (System Center 2019 / VMM and Windows Admin Center) 
NEW
Yes (XenCenter)
  •  
Virtual and Physical
Limited (plug-ins)
Yes (Complete SC mgmt, Fabric Updates, Storage Management)
Limited (plug-ins)
NEW
  •  
RBAC / AD-Integration
Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts)
NEW
Yes (SCVMM, Windows Admin Center)
NEW
Yes (hosts/XenCenter)
  •  
Cross-Vendor Mgmt
vRealize Automation (Vendor Add-On)
Improved (VMware) & removed (Citrix)
No (native)
Yes (Vendor Add-On: CloudPlatform)
  •  
Browser Based Mgmt
Yes (vSphere Web Client, HTML5 Web Client)
Windows Admin Center
NEW
Not directly with XenCenter but possible with XenOrchestra (Open Source)

More info: http://bit.ly/2m7FVIG
  •  
Adv. Operation Management
Limited (native) - vCenter Operations
Full (with Vendor Add-On: vRealize Operations)
Yes (SC Operations Manager, Microsoft Azure)
No
  Updates and Backup  
  •  
Hypervisor Upgrades
Yes (Update Manager)
Yes (Cluster Aware Updates, Fabric Updates; Azure Update Management - NEW)
NEW
The XenCenter released with XenServer 7.0 allows updates to be applied to all versions of XenServer (commercial and free)
XenServer 7.1 introduced Live patching
NEW
  •  
VM Patching
Limited (Update Manager)
Yes (WSUS, SCCM, VMST, Azure Update Management - NEW)
NEW
Yes
  •  
Live VM Snapshot
Yes
Yes (Checkpoint, Production Checkpoint)
Yes
  •  
Backup Integration API
Yes (vStorage API Data Protection)
Yes (VSS API)
Limited
  •  
Integrated Backup
Yes (vSphere Data Protection) - Replication of backup data, granular backup and scheduling
Yes (WSB & DPM incl. Linux VMs), Azure Backup (New Fee Based Offering)
No (Retired)
  Deployment  
  •  
Automated Host Deployments
No
Yes (bare metal through VMM), incl. Storage Spaces Direct
No
  •  
VM Templates
Yes (Content Library)
Yes (now incl. Gen 2 templates)
Yes
  •  
Tiered VM Templates
Yes (vApp/OVF)
Yes (Service Templates), guest cluster support
vApp
  •  
Host Profiles
No
Yes (physical computer profiles)
No
  •  
Storage Profiles
Yes (Storage Based Policy Management)
Yes (Storage Classifications - incl. file shares)
No
  Other  
  •  
Resource Pools
Limited (host-level only)
Yes (Host Groups)
No
  •  
P2V
Yes (vCenter Converter)
No (use down-level VMM versions)
No (XenConvert: retired), V2V: yes
  •  
Self Service Portal
No
Yes (VMM console, Service Manager, Azure Pack, Azure Stack)
No (Web Self Service: retired)
  •  
Orchestration / Workflows
Yes (vRealize Orchestrator)
Yes (SC Orchestrator, SC Service Mgr, Azure Automation)
Yes (Workflow Studio)
  •  
Security
Yes (ESXi Firewall, vShield Endpoint)
NEW
Windows Security, Hyper-V Extensible Switch (DNSSEC, PVLANs, port ACLs, BitLocker etc., Shield VM)
Direct Inspect APIs and Basic (NetScaler - Fee-Based Add-On)
  •  
Systems Management
vSphere’s REST API, PowerCLI, vSphere CLI, ESXCLI, Datacenter CLI
Yes (WMI + PowerShell)
Yes (API / SDKs, CIM)
Network and Storage expand
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  Storage  
  •  
Supported Storage
DAS, NFS, FC, iSCSI, FCoE (HW&SW), vFRC, SDDC
NEW
SMB3, virtual FC, SAS, SATA, iSCSI, FC, FCoE; shared vhdx, S2D
DAS, SAS, iSCSI, NAS, SMB, FC, FCoE, openFCoE
  •  
SAN Multipath
Yes (enhanced APD and PDL) PDL AutoRemove
Yes (MPIO and SMB Multichannel)
NEW
Yes (limited for SAS)
  •  
Shared File System
Yes (VMFS v6)
Yes (CSV); enhanced compatibility and resilience
Yes (SR)
  •  
Boot From SAN
Yes (FC, iSCSI, FCoE and SW FCoE)
Yes (iSCSI, diskless, FC)
Yes (iSCSI, FC, FCoE)
  •  
Boot from USB
Yes
No
No
  •  
Virtual Disk Format
vmdk, raw disk (RDM)
.vhdx (incl. sharing and online resizing, vhd, pass-through (raw)
vhd, raw disk (LUN)
  •  
Max Disk Size
64TB
64TB (vhdx), 2TB (vhd), 256TB+ (raw)
2TB
  •  
Thin Disk Provisioning
Yes
Yes (Dynamic Disks, Trim)
Yes (Limitations on block)
  •  
NPIV Support
Yes (RDM only)
Yes (Virtual Fibre Channel)
No
  •  
Linked Images
No
Yes (Differencing Disk)
Yes - Clone on boot, clone, PVS, MCS
  •  
SW Storage Replication
Yes (vSphere Replication)
Yes (Hyper-V Replica - Storage Replica)
No
  •  
Caching
No
CSV Cache; Write-Back Cache - Storage Spaces Direct Cache
IntelliCache and in-memory read cache
  •  
Virtual SAN
No (native)
Yes (with Vendor Add-On: vSAN 6.7)
(no major updates with WS2019)Improved (Storage Spaces); Tiered Storage, Write-Back Cache - Storage Spaces Direct
No
  •  
Storage Integration (API)
No
SMI-S / SMP, ODX, Trim, ReFS Accelerated VHDX Operation
Integrated StorageLink (deprecated)
  •  
Storage QoS
Limited (basic, no SIOC)
Distributed Storage QoS
Basic
  Networking  
  •  
Advanced Network Switch
No
Yes (Hyper-V Virtual Switch); Extended Port ACLs, vRSS, DLB - Switch Embedded Teaming - Network Controller
Yes (Open vSwitch) - vSwitch Controller
  •  
NIC Teaming
Yes (no LACP Support)
Yes (LBFO); Dynamic Load Balancing - Switch Embedded Teaming
Yes (incl. LACP - New)
  •  
VLAN
Yes
Yes
Yes (limited for mgmt. traffic)
  •  
PVLAN
No
Yes
No
  •  
IPv6
Yes
Yes
Yes (guests only)
  •  
I/O Pass-Through
VMDirectPath (No SR-IOV)
Yes - SRIOV (incl. Live Migration)
SR-IOV
  •  
Jumbo Frames
Yes
Yes
Yes
  •  
Offload Support
Yes (TSO, NetQueue, iSCSI)
Yes (RSS,VMQ,VMMQ, Ipsec Offload, SR-IOV )
Yes (TSO)
  •  
Network QOS
Limited (no NetIOC)
Yes (max and min bandwidth); SMB traffic types
Yes (outgoing)
  •  
Traffic Monitoring
No
Yes (port mirroring); enhanced tracing
Yes (Port Mirroring)
Hypervisor expand
0%
0%
0%
  General  
  •  
Hypervisor Details/Size
Virtual Hardware version 14
Hyper-V 4
XenServer 7.1: Xen 4.7 -based
  Host Config  
  •  
Max Consolidation Ratio
1024 VMs
NEW
1024 vims/host, 2048 vCPUs/host
1000 VMs per host
  •  
Max CPU / Host
768 physical
NEW
512 Logical CPUs
288 (logical)
  •  
Max Cores per CPU
unlimited
unlimited
unlimited
  •  
Max Memory / Host
16TB (EXCLUDING Reliable Memory Technology)
NEW
24TB
5TB
  VM Config  
  •  
Max vCPU per VM
128 vCPU
up to 240 vCPU (Win) / 240 vCPU (Linux)
32
  •  
Max RAM per VM
6TB
12TB
1.5TB
  •  
Serial Ports
32 (no vSPC)
yes (named pipe)
No
  •  
USB Support
Yes (USB 1.x, 2.x and 3.x) with max 20 USB devices per vm
Yes
No (except mass storage)
  •  
Hot Add/Plug
Yes (CPU, Mem, Disk, NIC, PCIe SSD)
Yes (except CPU)
Yes (disk, NIC)
  •  
Graphic Acceleration
No
Yes (Discrete Device Assignement)
Yes
  Memory  
  •  
Dynamic / Over-Commit
Yes (Memory Ballooning)
Yes - Dynamic Memory (Linux guest support)
Yes (DMC)
  •  
Memory Page Sharing
Yes (Transparent Page Sharing)
No
No
  •  
Large Pages
Yes
Yes
No
  •  
HW Memory Translation
Yes
Yes (SLAT)
Yes
  Interoperability  
  •  
OVF Support
Yes
Yes (OVF Import/Export)
Yes, incl. vApp
  •  
HW Compatibility
Very Comprehensive (see link)
Strong Windows Ecosystem
Improving
  •  
Guest OS Support
Very Comprehensive (see link)
Closing the gap
Good
NEW
  •  
Container Support
No
Yes (Windows containers, Hyper-V Containers, Kubernetes - NEW)
NEW
Yes
  •  
Scripting / APIs
Web Services API/SDK, CIM, Perl, .NET, Java SDKs, Client Plug-In API, vSphere Clip, vMA
Yes (WMI API, PowerShell)
Yes (SDK, API, PowerShell)
  •  
Cloud API
No (vCloud API)
Service Provider Foundation API, Azure Service Management API
CloudStack APIs, support for AWS API
Extensions expand
0%
0%
0%
  Cloud  
  •  
Overview Cloud
No
Cloud OS: System Center, Hyper-V, Azure
NEW
CloudPlatform; OpenStack
NEW
  Desktop Virtualization  
  •  
Overview VDI
VMware Horizon 7 (Vendor Add-On)
Remote Desktop Services (included in Server 2019)
vGPU (Remote FX)
Passthrough GPU (Device Discrete Assignment)
Citrix Desktop Virtualization (XenDesktop & XenApp 7.6 - NEW; ViaB; associated products)
  1  
  •  
Virtual SAN
vSAN 6.7 (Vendor Add-On)
Improved (Storage Spaces); Storage Spaces Direct
no
  2  
  •  
Application Management
App Volumes
Yes (SC Operations Manager 2019, Azure Monitor);
Vendor Add-On: XenDesktop
Citrix Director
  3  
  •  
Security Add On
NSX (Vendor Add-On)
Azure Monitor, Azure Sentinel, Azure Security Center
Vendor Add-Ons: NetScaler Gateway, App Firewall, CloudBridge
NEW
  4  
  •  
Workflow / Orchestration
vRealize Orchestrator
Yes (SC Orchestrator / SC Service Mgr 2019, Azure Automation), Included
Workflow Studio (incl.)
  5  
  •  
Site Failover
Site Recovery Manager (Vendor Add-On)
Hyper-V Replica (included) , Storage Replica, Azure Site Recovery or 3rd party Fee-Based Add Ons
Integrated Site Recovery (incl.)
  6  
  •  
Chargeback
vRealize Business (Vendor Add-On)
Hyper-V Resource Metering and Service Manager (included), Health Service
Vendor Add-On: CloudPortal Business Manager, CloudStack Usage Server (Fee-Based Add-Ons)
NEW
  7  
  •  
Network Extensions
No
Hyper-V Extensible Switch - 3rd party Extensions (Nexus 1000V - Fee-Based Add On)

Matrix Score

  •  
  •  
  • Red Hat
  • Microsoft
  • Citrix
  •  
  • 3 rd
  • 2 nd
  • 5 th
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