Tinkster, as a moderator, are you able to edit the poll? If so, can you add the options people have asked for?

We are currently running several host systems with vmware server2.0 each host as several guest systems running various versions of linux or windows. We are limited by the two processor max on vmware server even though each of our servers have eight cores. I am wondering if the new Virtual Box implementation which supports over 8 virtual cpus would be a better mactch for us. Any opinions.
What would we lose?
What would we gain?

switch over to KVM and libvirt - no limits

I'd have to go with Virtualbox. I've used it to test multiple Operating Systems, and use it to run a windows compiling Virtual Machine. Works well and have had no issues with it.

I'm afraid I can't :/

Jeremy could.

I think some other important criteria are:

• cost
• management tools - re deploy, manage, monitor your VMs
• scalability re. can you scale internally or externally if you need to using the same environment choice

VMware has a great environment ... but its not cheap. Especially if you require High Availability etc.

XEN is widely used and quite stable

KVM is the relatively new kid on the block but it holds a great deal of promise. I think that's evident with the move of both Red Hat and Ubuntu to focus on KVM. Note Red Hat's recent purchase of Qumranet.

I've used vmware, kvm, XEN, virtualbox, qemu.

I'm spending more time lately with KVM because I think its cost (free) but also its inherent architecture is better.

Here is a good short paper on KVM by Qumranet (now part of Red Hat)

http://www.qumranet.com/files/white_...Whitepaper.pdf

Wow! You've traveled through time?

We are using OS virtualization at this time (Virtuozzo), but the short term plans are to set up and KVM based infrastructure.

I don't have much to contribute here, as I have only tried two of the listed programs.
On my 64-bit WinXP machine I first tried VMware, found it very aggravating to set up, tried VBox, went much smoother, thought the Help is pretty naff. Anyway, I'm now using VBox, running 64-bit Debian. Not without problems, which I could probably solve if I spent enough time on them, which I don't have, my general complaint is the Help very often isn't, so it takes a long time to make things work the way one would like. This especially refers to communicating with various peripherals.

I go for Xen as it has best memory management and support both para and full virtualization

My experience with other VM platforms is limited to the older version VMware but I have been working with Oracle VM for quite a few months now.

Based on Redhat's virtualization, Oracle has a VM manager on a Linux host to provide a user interface and dedicated VM servers to host the guests. Being OpenSource, the software is free but support has to be paid for.

Oracle has declared that they will not support any of its proprietary software (database, application server, etc) on virtualization issues if they are not on Oracle VM. Which is why I have been running Oracle databases and Application servers on it for several months already.

On all instances, the databases and application servers I installed on Linux hosts have been running flawlessly. While they are not used for production, our development groups have been using them heavily and I have had no performance issues with any of them. I have just acquired two Dell R710 servers which I am in the process of setting up as an HA cluster. Once these are set up I shall be able to test the automatic failover capabilities of Oracle VM on Oracle databases and Application servers.

Obviously, my vote would be for Oracle VM at this point.

Looking at the Linux Journal review, it's obvious that Virtual Box is ahead of the rest according to Kyle Rankin, et.al. over at LJ (at least in the Free Software realm). If VMWare ESX were being factored in here, there wouldn't be much comparison (usability, performance, scalability, etc...) In fact, the LJ "shootout" is a bit schizophrenic in the fact that KVM is being lumped into and compared with small/medium business/personal echnologies, when it is/will be a very competitive product (and more than able to take the Pepsi Challenge with ESX).

Speaking personally, after a hands on with the tech-preview KVM/libvirt/MRG technology at RH Summit, seeing the roadmap, and noting the amount of polish and forethought being applied, I'm putting my money on KVM giving ESX a serious run for it's money - especially when considering the broad architectural approach RH is taking with thir overall Storage/OS/Application and thir stack(s).

I never really got around to trying virtualization although I was really curious. Since switching to Fedora as my main distro I decided to give KVM a try. I must say I'm impressed. The virt-manager makes setup really easy.

I have been testing XenServer product from past 2 years and i can tell XenServer is great in performance and reliability than any other product in market. Its true that VMware is far more famous in market and has many advance options to manage servers. But Xenserver with its current functionality is very stable and there are many new features coming very soon...