On March 30, 2009 Citrix opened the floodgates and started offering Citrix XenServer Enterprise for free. However to get some of the enterprise features such as High Availability it is necessary to purchase Citrix Essentials for XenServer. Here is a comparison of enterprise virtualization offerings from Citrix and VMware:

• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2,750 per server with one year Subscription Advantage.
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $2,875 per CPU (up to 6 cores) + VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995.

Price Comparison

• N two-way servers (N > 3): $4,995 + N x $3,000
• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2,750 x N
• Citrix XenCenter: $0
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $5,750 x N
• VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995

• N four-way servers (N > 3): $4,995 + N x $8,750
• Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition: $2750 x N
• Citrix XenCenter: $0
• VMware vSphere Enterprise: $11,500 x N
• VMware vCenter Server Standard: $4,995

 

  Examples

• 5 two-way servers: $4,995 + 5 x $3,000 = $19,995 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 5 four-way servers: $4,995 + 5 x $8,750 = $48,745 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 10 two-way servers: $4,995 + 10 x $3,000 = $34,995 savings with Citrix XenServer
• 10 four-way servers: $4,995 + 10 x $8,750 = $92,495 savings with Citrix XenServer

To take full advantage of VMware vSphere Enterprise six-core licensing limit, it may be worthwhile to consider the following servers with six-core AMD and Intel processors to maximize VM density:

With AMD Opteron 24xx or 84xx Series

• HP ProLiant BL465c G6, BL495c G6, BL685C G6
• HP ProLiant DL385 G6, DL585 G6, DL785 G6
• IBM BladeCenter LS22, LS42
• IBM System x3755
• Sun Blade X6240, X6440
• Sun Fire X4140, X4240, X4440

With Intel Xeon 74xx Series

• HP ProLiant BL680c G5
• HP ProLiant DL580 G5
• IBM System x3850 M2, x3950 M2
• Sun Blade X6450
• Sun Fire X4450

Of course software licensing costs are only a component of the total cost of ownership and a number of other factors such as performance and management applications available must be considered when choosing a virtualization platform. This is exactly what solution providers using Lanamark Suite try to accomplish when presenting enterprise customers with side-by-side comparisons across end-to-end virtualization solutions that encompass hardware, software and service components.

As speculation looms around plans from Citrix to release Citrix XenServer as open source, it's worthwhile to analyze how such a move would impact other leading software vendors in the virtualization space.

On February 23, 2009 Citrix announced that it will give away the full version of Citrix XenServer for free. Since Citrix is not generating any revenue from XenServer, open sourcing it seems like a logical step. But how will such a move impact the marketplace? Why would Citrix spend $500M on XenSource and then make Citrix XenServer open source?

As a Microsoft partner, Citrix understands that it's better to cooperate than to compete with the software giant, particularly in the server virtualization space. By open-sourcing Citrix XenServer, Citrix would:

1. Expand Citrix XenServer market share and drive additional revenue through virtualization management software such as Citrix Essentials.
2. Offer enterprises an open-source alternative to Microsoft Hyper-V with feature parity and high degree of interoperability.
3. Increase community-based support for development and maintenance of Citrix XenServer, rather than funding R&D completely.
4. Enhance adoption and survivability of Citrix XenServer by getting other software vendors such as Novell and Oracle to support it.

Microsoft

Microsoft benefits the most from this move because there would be an open-source server virtualization alternative that would isolate two other Linux-based virtualization platform vendors: Red Hat and VMware. In other words, Microsoft is squeezing these vendors from one side with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and from the other side with the help of Citrix XenServer.

Novell

As a company that already has good relationships with both Citrix and Microsoft, Novell has an opportunity to provide virtualization management capabilities across these two platforms. It already does this with the PlateSpin family of products. Novell may also do a port of Citrix XenServer to Novell SUSE but this is probably not a trivial effort and would take quite a bit of time.

Oracle

Oracle VM is already based on the Xen hypervisor. Whether Oracle decides to adopt Citrix XenServer depends on whether Oracle wants to give away its intellectual property to the open source community or to build dominance in the server virtualization space on its own. However, given its active participation in the Xen community, support for open source development model and antagonism towards Red Hat, Oracle may just throw its weight behind an open source Citrix XenServer.

In a nutshell Citrix, Microsoft, Novell and Oracle have a lot to gain from an open source Citrix XenServer, while Red Hat and VMware have a lot to lose from such a move. Perhaps Citrix will also rename Citrix XenServer back to XenSource Server?!

Update (November 2, 2009)

According to an interview with Simon Crosby, CTO at Citrix, XenServer will be open-sourced but the following components will not be:

• Citrix XenCenter
• Citrix XenConvert
• Drivers for Microsoft Windows

Last week Citrix announced that it will make Citrix XenServer Enterprise available at no charge to customers. How does its offering compare to that of VMware? To answer this question, it is essential to compare Citrix XenServer Enterprise to a VMware bundle that closely matches Citrix XenServer Enterprise features.

Which VMware bundle should Citrix XenServer Enterprise be compared to?

Since Citrix XenServer Enterprise does not have High Availability (HA) and Dynamic Resource Scheduler (DRS), the most accurate comparison would be versus

• VMware Infrastructure Foundation ($995) with VMotion add-on ($3,495) per 2 CPUs or
• VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit, which includes licenses for VMware Infrastructure Foundation and VMware vCenter Foundation ($2,995) for 6 CPUs, with VMotion add-on ($3,495) per 2 CPUs

Note: VMware Infrastructure Standard Edition includes HA and hence it would not be valid to compare it to Citrix XenServer Enterprise.

Multi-server Management

• Citrix is giving away XenCenter for free to allow enterprises to manage multiple hosts.
• The equivalent VMware vCenter Server offering is priced at $4,995 for an unlimited number servers or $1,495 for VMware vCenter Foundation limited to 3 servers
• Delta: $4,995 or $1,495 for 3 servers

Live Migration

• XenMotion is included with Citrix XenServer Enterprise
• VMware sells VMotion and Storage VMotion as an add-on starting at $3,495
• Delta: $3,495 per two-way server

 

Price Comparison

• 1 two-way server: $2,490
• VMware Infrastructure Foundation: $995
• VMware vCenter Foundation: $1,495
• No need for VMotion
• 2 two-way servers: $9,985
• VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit: $2,995
• VMware vCenter Foundation: included
• VMotion: $3,495 x 2 = $6,990  

• 3 two-way servers: $13,480
• VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit: $2,995
• VMware vCenter Foundation: included
• VMotion: $3,495 x 3 = $10,485 

• N two-way servers (N > 3): $4,995 + N x $4,490
• VMware Infrastructure Foundation: $995 x N
• VMware vCenter Server: $4,995 
• VMotion: $3,495 x N

When 4 or more servers are required, a simple rule of thumb is to multiply $5,000 by N +1 servers. For example if 10 servers are required then the price difference would be $5,000 x (10 + 1) = $55,000.

Citrix XenServer Enterprise with Citrix Essentials for XenServer Enterprise Edition vs. VMware Infrastructure Enterprise Edition comparison can be found here.

Notes:

• Support and Subscription (SnS) entitlements for VMware MUST be purchased separately
• XenMotion does not include storage migration available in the VMware VMotion + Storage VMotion bundle.

Citrix today announced that it will make Citrix XenServer Enterprise available at no charge to customers. How does its offering compare to that of Microsoft?

Since Microsoft Hyper-V is free and because Microsoft is making revenue from its System Center family of systems management products, this move will further align Citrix with Microsoft. Furthermore, because Citrix is going to support Hyper-V in its Citrix Essentials management package and because Microsoft is going to support Citrix XenServer in System Center Virtual Machine Manager, the virtualization offerings from both vendors are becoming increasingly symmetrical:

• Citrix XenServer Enterprise (free) with Citrix Essentials management applications ($).
• Microsoft Hyper-V (free) with System Center management applications ($).

That said, there are several areas where the offering from Citrix shines compared to the one from Microsoft:

Live Migration

• XenMotion is included with Citrix XenServer Enterprise.
• Microsoft is not going to have live migration capabilities until Windows Server 2008 R2 is released (in 2010 most likely).

Multi-server Management

• Citrix is giving away XenCenter for free to allow enterprises to manage multiple hosts.
• The equivalent Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager offering is priced at $869 USD per managed server. Alternatively, customers may purchase Virtual Machine Manager as part of the System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise at $1497 USD per managed server.

Lab Management and Stage Management

• Citrix partnered with VMLogix to include stage and lab management capabilities as part of Citrix Essentials.
  
• Microsoft is going to offer lab management capabilities as part of Microsoft Visual Studio Team System 2010.
  

It is clear that Citrix and Microsoft will continue creating a unified front against VMware. The most recent announcement from Citrix declaring extension of its 20-year partnership with Microsoft into server virtualization underscores this.

Regardless of whether Citrix XenServer Enterprise or Microsoft Hyper-V is the target virtualization platform, planning for these environments side-by-side is becoming increasingly important. Products such as Lanamark Suite and Novell PlateSpin Recon make this possible.

Learn more about the Sever Virtualization Design Module with support for Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V and other virtualization platforms.