VMWare has among the best stack of management and operational tools. But the Microsoft–Citrix combination has made some key announcements recently – the Citrix core virtualization platform and the basic management tools are now given out free, and the redesigned XenSource management toolkit can manage the Microsoft Hyper-V platform.

Also, importantly, the roadmap includes virtual plug-in of Microsoft Systems Management Server managing the Xen hypervisor layer and virtual machines. Microsoft SMS is the de-facto systems management tool at many Windows shops, and the joint strategy can make virtualization technology accessible to a broader demographic.

Apart from the Citrix Microsoft partnership, interoperability initiatives for mixed (Linux and Windows) virtual environments can be observed. Red Hat and Microsoft announced an agreement to work on achieving a higher level of interoperability on their virtualization platforms.

This can have the effect of enterprises running Red Hat Linux server guest OS on the Hyper-V platform and Windows Server 2003 and 2008 guest OS on a Linux hypervisor. Also, Novell, the other major Linux vendor, has been working with Microsoft for over two years.

Server virtualization: Key trends

Three server virtualization market trends are clearly observable:
1) Interoperability in increasing, through a number of vendor ‘cooperation’ agreements. Although still in the early stages this could ease management in IT shops with more than one virtualization platform. 

2) The Citrix Microsoft combination is leading to a mixed virtualization platform environment (as opposed to the common VMware dominant environment)

3)The core technologies are increasingly cheap or even free, and even basic management capabilities are a less expensive than they use to be.

The author is managing analyst at Butler Group