The server virtualization market has a brand new/outdated participant that desires to make waves with eager pricing and a plan to enhance its tech: XenServer.
XenServer is a Citrix product the corporate acquired from XenSource in 2007 – a 12 months through which server consolidation was all the trend and VMware had emerged because the market chief.
XenServer did decently for Citrix within the years that adopted, however Virtzilla got here to dominate the market and Microsoft began all however freely giving Hyper-V, and by so doing captured a piece of the market itself.
In round 2014, by which period server virtualization had turn out to be extra about non-public clouds, Citrix more or less admitted defeat in its try and compete with VMware and Microsoft, and began to focus on making XenServer the most effective atmosphere for its personal apps.
That method type of labored. Citrix pointed to good adoption charges for XenServer amongst customers of its different merchandise, however its lack of give attention to XenServer noticed it forked as XCP-ng.
Citrix ultimately ditched the Xen title and went with Citrix Hypervisor.
However since Citrix was absorbed into the Cloud Software Group (CSG), it has quietly revealed that XenServer has morphed right into a member of the CSG – making it a standalone enterprise as an alternative of only a Citrix product.
XenServer has since teased “vital funding” within the product – together with hiring workers to make that occur – and early in 2023 dropped the next little nugget of information:
Glad New Yr from the XenServer staff!
In these difficult instances a reminder that XenServer, not like sure different hypervisors, is licensed per socket fairly than per core.
— XenServer (@xenserver) January 3, 2023
One of many “sure different hypervisors” talked about is sort of actually VMware’s ESXi.
VMware customers typically grumble concerning the worth of the virtualization big’s wares, with a contemporary spherical of unease following the February 2020 licensing tweaks designed to cost extra for its software program on many-core CPUs.
VMWare customers might also be particularly delicate to pricing points, or vulnerable to migration temptations, presently as a result of enterprise’s imminent takeover by Broadcom.
The Register requested CSG to element its technique and ambitions for XenServer, however was instructed “the staff is not out there in the mean time.” Nor have been we instructed when a second would possibly current itself. We subsequently haven’t any element on the outfit’s know-how or hiring plans, or if the latter stay in place given they have been teased earlier than CSG laid off 15 percent of its staff.
The virtualization market is mature and settled, so it is exhausting to see XenServer shaking issues up an excessive amount of. Gamers who’ve tried to introduce new hypervisors have additionally typically not turn out to be runaway successes: Nutanix’s AHV has carved out a distinct segment with out significantly disrupting the market, whereas the likes of Scale Computing which have created their very own cuts of open supply hypervisors stay small gamers.
However XenServer does have an put in base to defend, a worth differentiator, the prospect to construct one thing compelling, and VMware prospects who’ve causes to be receptive to options.
When the XenServer staff finds a second for a chat, we’ll carry you extra information of its plans. ®
