When you enter “VDI comparison” in google, the first hit you get is actually one of my first blogpost I published 2 years ago. The blogpost is about a VDI-broker feature comparison created by Quest. Although it was a useful document (to see which features Quest vWorkspace has), it wasn’t created by (an) independent person(s).
It’s quit amazing to see that Virtualfuture.info is still number 1 hit for “VDI comparison”. First of all because we didn’t create the comparison chart and second of all, since then, no one else created one. Until now!

Ruben Spruijt from PQR, with the help of a number of colleagues (including me), created something more than just a feature comparison: the VDI smackdown whitepaper!

If you are looking for an independent overview of the Server Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI) solutions and curious about the different features- and functions each Desktop Virtualization vendor is offering!? This is the whitepaper you definitely must read!

In the current market there is an increasing demand for unbiased information about Desktop Virtualization solutions. This white paper is focused on solutions that are anticipated to have an important role in VDI deployments. An overview of available features of each solution is created to better understand each solutions capability.

Also read Ruben’s post at brianmadden.com. Comment or mail Ruben for feedback!

The “Project Virtual Reality Check” team just released a new whitepaper: “Hyper-V 2008R2, vSphere 4, XenServer 5.5 on Intel ‘Nehalem’ Xeon 5500“. 

 “If you are looking for an independent advise and a ‘Reality Check’ in relation to Virtualizing Terminal Server and Desktop workloads, if you are curious about the impact of different hypervisors and the performance differences with various hardware and if you are searching for best practices for your virtual Desktops … Project VRC whitepapers are a must read!”

• Highlights, performance differences and best practice conclusions for Terminal Services workloads on:
  • Bare metal Terminal Services; 2003/2008/x86/x64
  • Hypervisors: Citrix  XenServer 5.5, Microsoft Windows Server 2008R2 ‘Hyper-V’ and VMware vSphere 4.0
  • Performance impact using different HP Proliant state-of-the-art hardware using Intel Xeon ‘Nehalem’ x5500  Read the rest of this entry »

Yesterday the third part of the “Hypervisor Footprint Debate” appeared on the Windows Virtualization Team Blog. As a consultant I’m supposed to be unbiased concerning vendors or products. “It depends” is our slogan . Therefore I’m always considering Microsoft Hyper-V and Citrix XenServer along VMware VI3/VS4 when it comes to hardware virtaulization and therefore I’m regularly checking the WVT-blog.

But the way Microsoft is using this blog to trash VMware is sad. Read the rest of this entry »

Most people who read our blog know something about virtualization so probably know what VMWare ESX and VMWare ESXi are. But Alessandro Perilli pointed the following KB article from VMWare out to me and I find it pretty usefull because it really clearly sums up the differences between the full ESX and the free ESXi product.

Check out the comparison here.

According to Thomas Koetzing XenApp 5.0 will be released the 10th of September (and my hunch is that the software will be available even earlier!) and will also be available for Windows Server 2003! Citrix always claimed that XenApp 5.0 would only be available on Windows Server 2008 and XenApp 4.5 would stay under development for Windows Server 2003. But Citrix came to their senses and realized that forcing their customers to move to W2K8 was not the way.

So now the question is which OS are you going to choose? That’s something you can only decide when you know what’s new and which features will or will not work on a certain OS.

Some new features (compared to CPS4.5) that are available both on W2K8 and W2K3: Read the rest of this entry »