The server virtualization market has a brand new/previous 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 wherein 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 bit of the market itself.
In round 2014, by which era server virtualization had turn into extra about personal clouds, Citrix more or less admitted defeat in its try and compete with VMware and Microsoft, and began to focus on making XenServer the very best 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 deal with XenServer noticed it forked as XCP-ng.
Citrix ultimately ditched the Xen identify 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:
Comfortable New 12 months from the XenServer crew!
In these difficult instances a reminder that XenServer, in contrast to sure different hypervisors, is licensed per socket reasonably than per core.
— XenServer (@xenserver) January 3, 2023
One of many “sure different hypervisors” talked about is nearly actually VMware’s ESXi.
VMware customers typically grumble in regards to the value of the virtualization large’s wares, with a recent spherical of unease following the February 2020 licensing tweaks designed to cost extra for its software program on many-core CPUs.
VMWare customers may be particularly delicate to pricing points, or inclined to migration temptations, right now because of the enterprise’s imminent takeover by Broadcom.
The Register requested CSG to element its technique and ambitions for XenServer, however was informed “the crew is not out there in the meanwhile.” Nor had been we informed when a second would possibly current itself. We due to this fact don’t have any element on the outfit’s know-how or hiring plans, or if the latter stay in place given they had been teased earlier than CSG laid off 15 percent of its staff.
The virtualization market is mature and settled, so it is arduous to see XenServer shaking issues up an excessive amount of. Gamers who’ve tried to introduce new hypervisors have additionally typically not turn into runaway successes: Nutanix’s AHV has carved out a distinct segment with out severely 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 value differentiator, the possibility to construct one thing compelling, and VMware clients who’ve causes to be receptive to options.
When the XenServer crew finds a second for a chat, we’ll deliver you extra information of its plans. ®
