Sun Updates xVM for 64-Bit Systems

By P J Connolly

September 18, 2008 —  With virtualization a solid leader in the race to be this year’s top buzzword, a longtime supporter of the technology has added its own take on managing virtual systems.

Sun Microsystems has thrown its latest generation of its xVM virtualization services into what is becoming an increasingly crowded market, releasing a new line of products this month and launching community and infrastructure services in support.

One thing that separates the xVM line from the competition is its ability to work with SPARC-based hardware as well as x86 servers; the new xVM Server can host Red Hat Linux, SUSE Linux and Windows, as well as OpenSolaris and Solaris.

But Sun appears to be taking the position that it’s better to work with what may be the dominant player of the day in virtualization, by making xVM Server interoperable with VMware systems. VMware ESX and xVM Server use the same formats for system virtualization.

xVM Server is available for US$500 per year per physical server. Pricing for xVM Ops Center ranges from $100 to 300 per year per managed server and does not include a required license for the company’s Satellite Server, which provides some of the management capabilities, for $10,000 annually.

Also available are subscription-based infrastructure management services. One package costs $2,000 per year per physical server and comes with live migration capabilities and the use of multiple network storage libraries. For $3,000, physical server monitoring and software life-cycle management features are added.

The xVM product line also includes VirtualBox, Sun’s desktop virtualization offering, which works with Linux, Mac OS X, Solaris and Windows, and VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure), which provides consolidation and management tools. VirtualBox and Ops Center are open source and available at openxvm.org; the source code for xVM Server can be downloaded from xvmserver.org.



Related Search Term(s): virtualization, Sun, VMware

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