Xen or VMware?
Posted on February 28, 2010
Filed Under Internet Marketing |
In this post we will discuss two of the most popular makers of virtualization softwares - Xen & VMware. As you might expect, both companies offer products that have numerous strengths and weakness. We hope to free you of any doubts concerning what you should choose.
Xen
One of the most important things that Xen software offers is extra memory. Extra memory is provided by a tool called VP swap. Users who require large memory overhead may find it useful. However, when swaps are overused, there is a small chance that a server will overload, but a much greater one that essential applications will slow down. Additionally, large volume of memory offered by Xen, larger than what many other popular platforms have in store, is important for some memory-consuming applications like apache. However, when they are used on Xen, as we said, it may slow things down.Why is the extra memory that Xen offers important? Generally speaking, the more memory or Ram that is available, the less frequently a server will have to access data from the much slower hard disk.The swap space feature makes Xen a top choice platform among customers with great memory needs. It works so that once the memory starts getting short, inactive processes are pushed aside to free up hard disk storage space.
VMware
VMware is currently the number one provider of virtualization software. Their software is compatible with Mac, Linux and Microsoft Windows. VMware utilize the CPU to run code whenever possible, and when it cannot, the software can actually re-write code to make it compatible. This process is known as binary translation. Once the code is translated, it can then be stored as spare memory. That is one of the reasons why VMware runs much faster - sometimes more than 80% - than its competitors/emulators. Not surprisingly, VMware results slightly more expensive than software offered by other companies. The prices of their products range from $ 1,000 to nearly $ 6,000, that is the reason why some cheap vps provider do not offer vmware vps. Despite that VMware opens the list of the world’s most popular virtualization software creators. One of the reasons is the simple fact that they have been around for longer than anyone else and their products are well tested and respected. They also do not require any operating system modification to improve performance like many of their top competitors.
What do we recommend?
VMware is a better option for several reasons. To begin with, Xen relies on Paravirtualization, which requires operating system modification by a vendor to optimize performance. On the other hand, VMware relies on emulation and binary translation and does not require a vendor to perform any modifications. VMware also has several features that help reduce downtime, while Xen has no such thing. Lastly, Xen has simply not been around long enough to have undergone proper testing in the field.
Comments
Leave a Reply
