Xensource versus VMware: Controversial View

The recently published performance comparison of VMware and Xen seems to show that VMware is tremendously outperforming Xen in a number of performance tests. However, there also exist opinions about the comparison being not as fair as it looks.

“The comparison the client had been given also had some other data included, some of which was misleading, and some of which was just plain wrong,” says Daniel. “It included statements such as ‘Xen does not support live migration’ when it does (and what’s more, the open source version supports it natively, so it’s not a bolt-on to the product), and a point stating that Xen had no management consoles available on one page, and a price comparison of VMware, Xensource and Virtual Iron on the next. Xensource provide a commercial management console for Xen. Huh.

After a bit of digging, I found the original VMware published report that this comparison was drawn from. Yes, VMware didn’t run a fair test, and yes, given that unfair test, Windows under VMWare ESX massively outperforms Xen in some areas, primarily I/O related.”

You can read the original article here.