Xen equivalent to VMware ESXi?

[Circlenaut]

I have a file server at home (2.66 core 2 duo, 8GB ECC ram, 4x 1TB HD, 7x 1.5TB HD and 1x 2TB HD). It's currently running FreeNAS 0.7.1. I have been trying out NexentaStor's new community edition (up to 12TB) and I love it minus AFP support (Time machine backups). So I'm having the idea of just taking a hypervisor and installing both FreeNAS and NexentaStor as virtual machines. I looked at ESXi but there's no easy way to backup the virtual machines (proprietary). Xen is completely open, so I'm thinking it won't have this problem. I'm also looking for something that's easy to manage via a web gui. Do any of you guys know of an ESXi equivalent to Xen? By that I mean just a simple OS with Xen that's JUST for virtualization?

If there is none then is the best setup CentOS + Xen + openQRM?

 

[JD50]

Xen is effectively dead with regards to CentOS and RHEL products. You want to look at KVM. If you use KVM and virt-manager you might get what you're looking for. In CentOS 5.5 just yum groupinstall "Virtualization" and that'll give you everything you need to get started.

 

[mundane]

..

 

[Crusty]

Citrix XenServer is the equivalent Xen product to ESXi. It has more 'free' features out of the box as well.

 

[Circlenaut]

Thanks, I'll look into these.

 

[PCTC2]

Citrix XenServer is the equivalent Xen product to ESXi. It has more 'free' features out of the box as well.

Yeah. I've used both ESXi and Citrix XenServer. ESX is great when you pay, but ESXi is only okay for feature support and accessibility. I liked Citrix XenServer but I'm not sure if you can back up VMs easily or if it has a web UI. I always used it as my test server with the Windows control console. Both open a greater feature suite when you pay. I think I just had a bad time with the architecture of my network and gave up on ESXi. Maybe I'll give it another shot someday but I digress.

If you want a host OS where you can actively log on and work on virtual machines from a local terminal, look into using RHEL or CentOS with KVM or VMware Server. Else, look into XenServer and ESXi.

 

[ASTOCADDIDS]

Guys

Just wanted to know if anyone has any recommendations on a Exchange equivalent that can run on Windows Server?

 

[imagoon]

I believe that Veeam has a free version for ESXi free. I know it is for home but if you pay for it (it is really cheap) you get access to backup the machines easily.

 

[classy]

I believe that Veeam has a free version for ESXi free. I know it is for home but if you pay for it (it is really cheap) you get access to backup the machines easily.

Thats true. I use it and it does work well. Offline backup of course.