There is some confusion regarding the roles of the Xen project, XenSource and the growing number of Xen virtualization vendors in the market. This confusion slows us and our customers down - this blog will hopefully provide some clarity.

(This blog is also available as a podcast.)

The Xen project provides hypervisor source code to anyone that wants it. Virtual Iron, among many others, decided to take advantage of this and built a solution around the Xen open source.

It is important to note that I said Virtual Iron built a "solution" around the Xen open source hypervisor. Xen is a piece of technology—a component, if you will. While valuable, it is ultimately just a piece of an overall solution. We take the Xen code, build on it, scrub it, enhance it, make it bulletproof, and then we give back to the community. Additionally, we developed layers of control and management that are solely our own and unique to Virtual Iron—creating a complete solution. And it is the solution you build around Xen that is more important than any single component.

This last point is important. We've had customers that implemented other Xen variants and hated it—they initially judged us with a critical eye because they had been jaded by previous experiences. Just getting in the door was an uphill battle. After they evaluated our solution, they realized that Virtual Iron was not the same as the others. So don't get confused by all the different players leveraging Xen.

Where do all the other Xen players fit in? A number of these vendors are operating system guys—including Novell, Red Hat and Sun—which is interesting since Xen virtual infrastructure actually works beneath the operating system. Will Microsoft customers really want to embrace a virtualization solution from Linux and Unix OS guys? Conversely, will SME customers with mixed Linux and Microsoft environments want to use Microsoft virtualization? It isn't just an emotional issue, but rather one of culture, understanding the requirements, appreciating the nuances of the environments, etc.

Many Xen vendors face the same challenges. They are relatively new to the virtualization game AND it is not a core competency. The OS guys may disagree, saying that virtualization solutions are operating systems. This is not true. While there may be similarities between the two, they are not interchangeable.

For the most part these vendors are building solutions from the ground up. This is not a one or even a two year process. Yes, they have or will have basic hypervisor technology. However, that is just the tip of the iceberg. The challenge is to provide the mobility and management capabilities necessary to support a true server virtualization environment—and make sure their solutions are bulletproof. In the complex world of infrastructure within vast ecosystems, this is much easier said than done.

Citrix is one of the Xen providers that I didn't discuss. Unlike the others, Citrix is not an operating system vendor. In fact, Citrix bought XenSource, the company that created the open source Xen community. Of course, Citrix leverages the Xen open source hypervisor, but with no additional advantages. Citrix is treated the same as any other vendor in the Xen open source project.

How does Citrix fit into the virtualization landscape? The company has a lot on its plate and is running in a million different directions at once. Keep in mind that Citrix has the unenviable task of going head-to-head with VMware. There are high expectations and the industry is banking on Citrix being the contender that stands up to VMware. Good luck with that.

The market is all a buzz about the new Citrix pricing. On the face of it they reduced their pricing and people are asking how we intend to respond. First, we aren't even sure what the details are because they haven't been clearly articulated. But more importantly we NEVER see Citrix in our channel or with end user accounts. Right now it's just sound and fury signifying nothing.

Virtual Iron is in a different position from all of the above. Obviously - like everyone else - we have challenges in front of us. But there are also important things we need to bang the drum about more loudly and more often. These include the following: Server virtualization is our core competency. We are OS agnostic. We have all of the core control and management functionality for true server virtualization. We are field proven. We are focused on a specific market segment and as such, we are far more targeted. It is important to understand that Virtual Iron provides much more value above and beyond the open source Xen hypervisor. In fact, we transcend Xen. Pun intended.