XenEnterprise shows progress fromthecommandlineisn’ttheendofthe
world but can become a chore if you have
large quantities of hosts to configure.
All the virtualization products we’ve
REVIEW: BUT MANAGEMENT LAGS BEHIND VIRTUAL IRON’S tested offer performance-enhancing,
virtualization-optimized drivers for use
B Xy Jason Brooks machine consoles open at once.) with guest instances. We found it was
ensource’s xenenterprise 3. 2 However, while we thought that the simpler toinstall XenSource’s optimized
is still in beta, but the product Virtual Iron interface for configuring drivers on our Windows Server 2003
is showing good progress, based iSCSI storage on virtualization nodes was guest than it was to do the same thing
on eWeek Labs’ tests. Spartancompared with the similar iSCSI with Virtual Iron. As with VMware’s
Most notably, XenEnterprise controls for VMware’s Virtual Infrastruc- VI3, these tools live in a virtual CD that
can now host unmodified operating ture 3, the XenEnterprise console doesn’t we could connect to our VM with a cou-systems, such as Microsoft ple of clicks in the console
Windows. But, as with Vir- interface. Also, once we’d
tual Iron Software’s Virtual installed the tools, we didn’t
Iron 3. 5 (see review, Page have to manually adjust our
30), XenEnterprise’s ability VM’s configuration to reflect
to host unmodified oper- the fact that we’d installed
ating systems via the Xen them, as was required with
hypervisor relies on specific Virtual Iron.
hardware. We’re pleased to report
We tested the XenEnter- that, unlike VI3, with its .Net
prise 3. 2 beta on a Hewlett- Virtual Infrastructure Client,
Packard HP Pavilion dv9000 XenEnterprise’s manage-notebook with Advanced ment console runs on both
Micro Devices’ Turion 64 X2 Windows and Linux.
dual-core processors, which The XenEnterprise man-ship with the requisite hard- agement tool ships in the
ware extensions for virtual- form of RPM (RedHat Pack-ization. While this machine age Manager) packages, the
isn’t something we’d suggest format used by Red Hat and
for deployment, its CPU and SUSE distributions, among
2GB of RAM were suitable others. We’d like to see Xen-for taking XenEnterprise for Source add DEB format
a spin. packages for distributions
Compared with Virtual such as Debian and Ubuntu
Iron 3. 5’s management con- or offer its management tool
sole, XenEnterprise’s console in a distribution-neutral for-is somewhat more polished mat, which is what VMware
in appearance but less ambi- does.
tious in range. The best approach we’ve
For example, XenEnter- seen so far is the one taken
prise’s management con- by Virtual Iron, in which its
sole effectively offered up management application is
a graphical console, which Java-based and distributed
allowed us to take the reins via Java Web Start. This
of the Windows Server allows administrators to
2003 guest instance we avoiddistributingmultiple
Top: XenEnterprise’s management console is more polished but less
created. We liked the con- ambitious than Virtual Iron 3. 5’s. Bottom: XenEnterprise can now host package types while
nec-sole’s options for docking unmodified operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows. essarily excluding some
or undocking the graphical client platforms. ´
console and for raising an undocked undertake this task at all. Rather, we had
console if we’d minimized it. (This to connect to our virtualization server via Advanced Technologies Analyst Jason
sort of interface element is particularly SSH (Secure Shell) to configure iSCSI Brooks can be reached at jason_brooks@
handy when you have several virtual via the command line. Configuring hosts ziffdavis.com.
