The only thing that I can add to Lars posting is that you can manage ESXi via the VIC client, which you can get by simply pointing your web browser to the ESX server itself, download, and install.
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Need help choosing between Xenserver and VMware ESXi
Am about to consolidate 6 Dell 2450's Dual P3's onto one or two HP DL 360 G5's with 2 5140 Dual Core processors in each.
The servers will have 8 Gb RAM each. The plan is to run 3 virtual servers on one HP and 3 on the other but have the ability to run all 6 on one server if ever required.
Am hoping to use a bare metal hypervisor. I cannot get to the bottom of VMWares blurb or Citrix's and currently do not have a 64bit platform to trial their products on.
I simply need to know what components I will need from either VMware or Citrix and which will be the most cost effective for a simple solution such as this.
With ESXi now free - Can I simply run this or will I need other add ons from VMware to configure/administer the ESXi servers.
Hopefully someone can give me a clear idea of what's required and possibly how much this would cost in terms of licensing.
The server roles are (all 2003 server) Domain Controller(File/Print,AV),
Thanks in advance for any info/help
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Answers
Thanks Lars and Bogdan
This is certainly what I needed to hear - The fact that it is possible on the freebies alone.
Lars I have read your comparisons also - good work.
my servers will have the following spec:
DL360 G5
2 x 5140 2.66Ghz Dual Core CPU
8Gb RAM
2 x 146Gb 10k SAS HDD 2.5
Smart Array P400/256Mb
The current server workload (and future VM's load) is not heavy. We are only talking 12 Gb Exchange - less than 10 users and the SQL and IIS servers are development systems.
I had specced the servers with 2 SAS disks with RAID1 in mind. Giving 20-40 Gb partitions to each VM
(Although I'd need more space than this if I wanted a smooth transition to one server if one server failed.) and between 1 and 2Gb memory to each VM
Lars - you recommend more disks in a RAID1 config. With my small workload is this an issue?
I will evaluate both ESXi and XenServer. Its a pity about the 4 VM limit with Xen.
Ease of configuration/maintenance is important to me. Being able to move VM's between hardware.
And the fast deployment of a vanilla server for test purposes (e.g. a prebuilt 2003 server with service packs and updates applied)
Have you any other thoughts or considerations given the above?
Regards, Graeme
ESXi is a great piece of software for proof of concept but without going to VI3 you're going to lose all the high availability and Vmotion capabilities, not to mention you cannot P to V with VI Client to an ESXi box unless you have VI3 Enterprise.
I did however find a way around this... download the 60 day trial of VI3 Enterprise and simply reinstall the software when the counter runs low, it restarts the counter.
The limit of 4 guests and 4GB ram is only valid for the freely available XenServer Express and it seems that this limit is still present in 5.0:
"It supports dual socket servers with up to 4GB of RAM and can host up to four virtual machines on each system."
Lars
I disagree:
Express Edition:
Physical memory 1 GB - 128 GB
CPU sockets 2
Guests active simultaneously Unlimited
RAM per virtual machine 32 GB
source: http://www.citrix.com/Engl
Y
If you want prove take a look at the screenshot I just took (http://www.gobien.be/root
On the screenshot you see 5 guests running, the version is 5.0 and i have no license.
- xenserver5express-nolimit4guests.jpg
- 40 KB
xenserver5-express-5-guest
s-running 
You're absolutely correct, GoBieN! Citrix really need to update their docs...
As also revealed deep inside their forum (and here), the VM and RAM limits are gone.
Why would they hide such info? They want only paying customers? Well, I guess freely available products are new in the citrix world....
Lars
"not to mention you cannot P to V with VI Client to an ESXi box unless you have VI3 Enterprise." - this is partly true, you have the option of downloading the free VMware Coverter, using P2V within that, then sending that to the ESXi box which is technically another format conversion. Not as tedious as it sounds, 2 steps and gets the job done if one's heart is set on using the VMware ESXi hypervisor with P2V capability.
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by: larstrPosted on 2008-09-09 at 11:23:12ID: 22430527
This depends a bit on the workload you're having today and the number of users you're going to serve.
A single DL360G5 will give you much better performance than your 6 old P3's in a virtual environment if you have a fast enough disk system in your new server. Even though you could run it on a single server it could be wise to have two servers in case of a hw failure.
You can surely run this on the freely available ESXi or on the freely available XenServer Express. Note however that XenServer Express is limited to 4GB per host and 4 VMs per host, unlike ESXi that is limited to 256GB ram and 128 VMs.
While XenServer requires a VT / AMD-V capable server, ESXi is also possible to install on an older server if you have a disk controller and nic that is supported.
If you need more features beyond what's available in the free editions you can easily add licenses to enable more features later.
Both of these products will easily be able to fulfill your needs, but the key to your success is that you order a BBWC for you disk controller and use as many disks as possible. Many small 15k rpm SAS disks will give you the best performance, especially in a RAID 10 configuration. RAID5 is not really recommended on database volumes such as SQL and Exchange.
I did some performance testing of both XenServer and ESX on HP DL360G5 servers here and they show very similar performance.
Good luck!
Lars