[Fwd: Re: What VM technology to use?]

[Daniel Mons]

Cary Bielenberg wrote:
> I guess the main problem from my perspective is documentation & "spit & 
> polish" of Xen & KVM makes it hard if you only administer 10 odd 
> machines, It's ok if you eat sleep & breath these apps but to the 
> sysadmins who have to multi skill it is almost prohibitive to setup. 
> What I'm trying to say is Vmware is bundled so that it is easy to 
> implement! I want to use open source solutions & am sceptical of 
> commercial companies who have "free" & commercial offerings. I want to 
> try the alternatives but to say the least KVM is a pig to implement 
> considering *buntu has made this the default. I googled for how to's but 
> there was a fair bit of ambiguity & confusion in the implementation. 
> 

I'm struggling to understand why you consider it "a pig" to use these 
things.

Virt-install and virt-manager make installing VMs about as easy as 
falling off a log.  And if you insist on pretty pictures, OVirt is for you:
http://www.ovirt.org/

If you only need desktop virtualisation (not server side stuff), then 
use something more purpose-fit like VirtualBox (also free):
http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Screenshots

Honestly, if the only thing holding you to VMWare is a pretty GUI, get 
out there and check out the competition.  VMWare is fast becoming 
redundant due to their technology rapidly becoming commoditised.

ArsTechnica have a marvellous write up on the situation:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080711-a-victim-of-its-own-success-troubled-times-ahead-for-vmware.html

VMWare's glory days are long gone, and they face stiff competition from 
a rising number of free competitors.  Even if you live and breathe 
VMWare, my suggestion to you is to at least learn an alternative before 
VMWare vanish for good.  :)

-Dan