GrinchyNet

Virtualization in the datacenter is all the rage. Everyone is doing it and for a variety of reasons; ease of management, cost, better server utilization, the list goes on. I am no different. I have been pushing virtualization since I started working here. It just makes sense.

Of course with virtualization you have to look at all of the solutions out there and there are quite a few. You have VMWare, which is the most well known of the bunch, Microsoft and Citrix. Those are the top three as far as I am concerned if there are more please tell me about them.

VMWare is everyones first choice. They are the standard when it comes to virtualization and rightfully so. They have a lot of neat feautures that are very useful for the daily administartion of your virtual environment. But they are horribly expensive. Ungodly expensive if you ask me. But Grinch, don't you work for the federal government? Is cost really a concern? You are right, budget wise it really doesn't matter but why should I spend a majority of my fiscal budget on VMware licensing when I could spend it elsewhere and utilize my money more efficiently? The cost doesn't justify itself to me.

Now there is Microsoft. I have used VirtualPC and Virtual Server. I have even used Hyper-V. They are just too new to the scene. They are an interesting prospect though and can see them becoming a major player in this arena. I will stick with using their products as a test environment though.

Citrix is what I chose. The cost is right up my alley and they have features that rival VMware. Another factor is they work very closely with a software vendor that we use and their product is designed for Citrix XenServer. If you are interested they have a free version that you can use. It is fully functional and will allow you to host as many virtual machines as your server will allow. It is initally a 30 day trial but you can get a year license for free. Pretty cool if you ask me. Their standard and enterprise editions are very well priced and gives you some additional features like high availability.

Now comes the headache. My current environment is 20 physical servers and about 200 workstations. This is going to be changing to roughly 70 virtual servers and about 500 workstations. About 300 of these workstations will be thin clients running a virtual desktop using Citrix XenDesktop. Attached to all this is going to be about 50 SAN's. Holy administrating nightmare batman! It is going to be fun though. I will be a virtualization guru in no time.

The next year or so is going to be one giant headache. So keep me in your thoughts faithful reader. Be on the lookout for some new tutorials because of all this.