VM management tools from Microsoft, VMware, XenSource leave room for improvement

VMware console serves up the tools to beat

By Tom Henderson , Network World
September 17, 2007 12:52 AM ET

Virtual machines are hot, and their proliferation is spinning out of control. Why the virtual-machine rush?

Easy: The "one operating system, one hardware host" rule is passé now that virtual-machine software lets companies stretch their hardware resources as far as their CPU capacity can take them.

Sessions, whether server or client, are freed from their hardware shackles. The downside is that virtual machines are creating virtual sprawl and management chaos. Each implementation behaves differently from the next, so predictability is spotty. Likewise, data backup and server availability plans have been thrown for a loop.

Makers of virtual-machine software platforms do offer some built-in methods for controlling infrastructure, but the sheer diversity of virtual-machine administration tasks have spawned a burgeoning aftermarket of products geared to reining in the mutating beast.

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Some of these management suites come from virtual-machine makers -- VMware, Microsoft and XenSource (recently acquired by Citrix Systems). Virtual-machine management start-ups and traditional server-management mainstays also have jumped into the fray.

In this first of a three-part series of testing-based articles, we examine the management wares from VMware, Microsoft and XenSource, looking at features included in their base virtual-machine platforms, as well as products offered by each vendor as part of add-on management consoles for its own platform. Other tests comparing offerings from third-party virtual-machine management vendors will be published later this year.

Product	VMware ESX Server 3 with VirtualCenter	Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 SP1 with Service Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007	XenEnterprise 4, including XenCenter
Vendor	VMware	Microsoft	XenSource (Citrix)
Price as tested	VMware Infrastructure starts at $1,000 for 2 processors. VMware offers free VMware Server, which does not include VirtualCenter.	MVS 2005 is a free download; SC-VMM 2007 is part of the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise, which costs $860 per server.	Ranges from $1,600 to $2,500 per server.
Pros	Strongest set of virtual-machine management tools.	Egalitarian guest operating-system hosting; good host compatibility; SC-VMM overall has rich features.	Strong guest operating-system compatibility.
Cons	Most tools come as an option; image-management security needs some work.	Decidedly Windows focused; requires other optional System Center components for optimal manageability.	Poor backward compatibility; immature docs; confined guest operating-system compatibility.