Citrix: Citrix’s thin client desktop and application software has long put it as a key part of the virtualization landscape as a supplemental part of a platform from Microsoft of VMWare. This summer, Citrix announced the acquisition of Xensource, one of the key competitors to both Microsoft and VMWare.

This gives Citrix a full server-to-desktop solution if it can successfully integrate the two organizations. Citrix has repeatedly assured customers it will continue to offer full support for all associated server and virtualization platforms from Microsoft and Citrix. In fact, the Company announced support for Microsoft’s Virtual Hard Drive format at the VMWorld event.

Microsoft: The dominant player in the server OS space has continued to struggle with its virtualization platform. The original design was retooled into the current Virtual Server 2005 in release.

The Virtual Server platform still runs as a service on top of an existing Windows server, creating a performance bottleneck that results in slower performance on similar hardware running VM ESX as a host. In addition, VMWare has better management, failover, and scalability functions versus Microsoft.

Last week, Microsoft announced the Virtual Machine Manager 2007 to offer a better system for Virtual Machine Management and deployment. In addition, Microsoft has a beta version of its new platform slated to be released with the new version of Windows Server 2008 planned for early next year. According to Microsoft, the new version includes improved performance, better server management, and application virtualization. Critics have continued to point out the lack of features, especially for server failover and overall performance when compared to VMWare’s ESX product line.

Virtual Iron: One of the smallest players in the market, the Company continues to make progress and win supporters. How much future development and market acceptance it will gain remains to be seen. The Company offers a similar design to VMWare, but currently lacks many of the features. The newly announced V4 improves the failover and high availability features and includes conversion tools for both physical and competitor migrations.

Standardization: A major development underway currently involves Microsoft, VMWare, and Citrix/Xensource to move towards a standardized format for storage of virtual machines. Historically, standardization has been a tough road for competitors. This effort has an interesting push coming from major manufacturers such as IBM, HP, Dell, and Intel. All four of these vendors have been extremely supportive of VMWare, perhaps a subtle signal to Microsoft which finds itself in a rare 2nd (or 3rd) place in this growing market. VMWare’s addition of their boot OS to new servers from the Big Three underscores its support and should drive Microsoft to comply with whatever standards evolve.

Interested in hearing more about the major players?

Contact your account manager today to arrange a “virtualization review” with our Solutions Architect (SA) team. GreenPages’ Solutions Architects are industry experts with real world experience that can help review and recommend the right solution for your organization.