Virtualization technology is all the rage, but which product is right for
your organization? Learn the virtualization vendors that deliver the
best software solutions.
You might not require every bit and byte of
programming they're composed of, but you'll rejoice at the components of
their feature sets when you need them. These solutions scale from a few
virtual machines that host a handful of Web sites, virtual desktops or
intranet services all the way up to tens of thousands of virtual
machines serving millions of Internet users. Virtualization and related
cloud services account for an estimated 40 percent of all hosted
services. If you don't know all the names on this list, it's time for an
introduction.
1. VMware
Find a major data center anywhere in the world that doesn't use
VMware, and then pat yourself on the back because you've found one of
the few. VMware dominates the server virtualization market. Its
domination doesn't stop with its commercial product, vSphere. VMware
also dominates the desktop-level virtualization market and perhaps even
the free server virtualization market with its VMware Server product.
VMware remains in the dominant spot due to its innovations, strategic
partnerships and rock-solid products.
2. Citrix
Citrix was once the lone wolf of application virtualization, but now it also owns the world's most-used cloud vendor software: Xen (the basis for its commercial XenServer). Amazon uses Xen for its Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) services. So do Rackspace, Carpathia, SoftLayer and 1and1 for their cloud offerings. On the corporate side, you're in good company with Bechtel, SAP and TESCO.
3. Oracle
If Oracle's world domination of the enterprise database server market
doesn't impress you, its acquisition of Sun Microsystems now makes it
an impressive virtualization player. Additionally, Oracle owns an
operating system (Sun Solaris), multiple virtualization software
solutions (Solaris Zones, LDoms and xVM) and server hardware (SPARC).
What happens when you pit an unstoppable force (Oracle) against an
immovable object (the Data Center)? You get the Oracle-centered Data
Center.
4. Microsoft
Microsoft came up with the only non-Linux hypervisor, Hyper-V, to
compete in a tight server virtualization market that VMware currently
dominates. Not easily outdone in the data center space, Microsoft offers
attractive licensing for its Hyper-V product and the operating systems
that live on it. For all Microsoft shops, Hyper-V is a competitive
solution. And, for those who have used Microsoft's Virtual PC product,
virtual machines migrate to Hyper-V quite nicely.
5. Red Hat
For the past 15 years, everyone has recognized Red Hat as an industry
leader and open source champion. Hailed as the most successful open
source company, Red Hat entered the world of virtualization in 2008 when
it purchased Qumranet and with it, its own virtual solution: KVM and
SPICE (Simple Protocol for Independent Computing Environment). Red Hat
released the SPICE protocol as open source in December 2009.
6. Amazon
Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) is the industry standard
virtualization platform. Ubuntu's Cloud Server supports seamless
integration with Amazon's EC2 services. EngineYard's Ruby application services leverage Amazon's cloud as well.
7. Google
When you think of Google, virtualization might not make the top of
the list of things that come to mind, but its Google Apps, AppEngine and
extensive Business Services list demonstrates how it has embraced cloud-oriented services.
8. Virtual Bridges
Virtual Bridges is the company that invented what's now known as
virtual desktop infrastructure or VDI. Its VERDE product allows
companies to deploy Windows and Linux Desktops from any 32-bit or 64-bit
Linux server infrastructure running kernel 2.6 or above. To learn more
about this Desktop-as-a-Managed Service, download the VERDE whitepaper.
9. Proxmox
Proxmox is a free, open source server virtualization product with a
unique twist: It provides two virtualization solutions. It provides a
full virtualization solution with Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) and a container-based solution, OpenVZ.
10. Parallels
Parallels uses its open source OpenVZ project, mentioned above, for
its commercial hosting product for Linux virtual private servers. High
density and low cost are the two keywords you'll hear when experiencing a
Parallels-based hosting solution. These are the two main reasons why
the world's largest hosting companies choose Parallels. But, the
innovation doesn't stop at Linux containerized virtual hosting.
Parallels has also developed a containerized Windows platform to
maximize the number of Windows hosts for a given amount of hardware.
11. Nutanix
The Nutanix solution consists of the "Nutanix Virtual
Computing Platform" which delivers enterprise compute and storage through
the deployment of commodity
computing servers (called nodes) which
each run a standard hypervisor and
the Nutanix Operating System (NOS). Each server contains Intel processors,
memory, solid-state
drives and traditional hard drives,
and when added into a cluster aggregates storage resources into a single
storage pool. Capacity is added by adding a node to the computing
cluster.