Comparison
Note: This comparison doesn't include Docker, because Docker is not a virtualization solution. It automates the deployment of applications inside software containers, by providing an additional layer of abstraction and automation of operating-system-level virtualization.[1] |
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Feature comparison of different virtualization solutions
Feature | Description | OpenVZ | Virtuozzo 6 (PCS 6) | OpenVZ 7 | Virtuozzo 7 | LXC | Proxmox VE | Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 | RHEV 3.5 | Citrix XenServer 6.5 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Virtualization platform | ||||||||||
1.1. Overview | ||||||||||
HW virtualization support (Hypervisor) | Full emulation of underneath hardware level: full isolation guest environment, no dependencies from host OS, overhead for hypervisor layer. | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
OS-level virtualization (Containers) | Sharing the same instance of host OS: high density, high performance, high dependencies from host OS. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No | No |
Hypervisor technology | Technology that enables to run Virtual Machines. | None | Parallels Desktop Monitor | KVM | KVM | None | KVM | Hyper-V | KVM | Xen |
Windows guest OS additional support | WHQL-signed drivers, SVVP certification | None | Yes | No | Yes | None | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Containers technology | Technology that enables to run Containers. | Virtuozzo Containers | Virtuozzo Containers with enhancements | Virtuozzo Containers with enhancements | Virtuozzo Containers with enhancements | Linux containers | LXC (moved from OpenVZ since 4.0) | None | None | None |
1.2. Memory | ||||||||||
Memory Overcommit | Ability to present more memory to virtual machines than physically available | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Page sharing | Memory (RAM) savings through sharing identical memory pages across virtual machines | Yes | Yes, only for CTs | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No |
2. Management | ||||||||||
2.1. General | ||||||||||
Unified management tool for CTs and VMs | Single tool for managing both containers and virtual machines (if applicable) | None | Yes | Yes | Yes | None | Yes | None | None | None |
OpenStack integration | Integration with OpenStack components (see details) | Yes, only Nova | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Central Management tool | Is centralized multi-server management available for this edition? | Yes, 3rd party | Yes, Parallels Virtual Automation (PVA) | No | Yes, Virtual Automator (coming soon) | Yes, 3rd party | Yes | Yes, System Center Virtual Machine Manager | Yes, RHEV Manager | Yes, XenCenter |
2.2. Upgrade & Backup | ||||||||||
Update Management | Integrated patching mechanism for the virtual environments (Guest OS) / guest tools / templates | No integrated update, YUM (Linux) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) | No integrated update, APT (Linux) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) | Yes (WSUS, SCCM, Virtual Machine Servicing Tool 2012 for offline VM update) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) | No integrated update, YUM (Linux), WSUS (Windows) |
Live VE snapshot | Ability to take a snapshot of a virtual environment while the guest OS is running (e.g. for roll-back or backup purposes) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Offline, CRIU support is planned | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Integrated Backup | Are backup plugins/tools provided to backup virtual environments (over and above the ability to perform classic backup using agents in the guests) | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
Backup Integration API | Integration with 3rd party backup applications for backup of the virtual environment. | No (only through snapshots) | Yes | Yes | Yes | No (only through snapshots) | Yes (vzdump) | Yes | Yes | No |
2.3. Others | ||||||||||
VEs Templates (VM, CT) | Ability to create and store master images and deploy virtual machines from them | Yes (CT only) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes (OpenVZ templates) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
P2V migration | Integrated or added P2V (or V2V) capability in order to convert physical systems to virtual environment. | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | No, 3rd party tools | Yes | No | No |
3. VE Mobility and HA | ||||||||||
3.1. VE Mobility | ||||||||||
Live Migration | Ability to migrate virtual machines between hosts without perceived downtime | Yes, but with no zero downtime | Yes, Kernal-Level Migration | Yes, CRIU | Yes, CRIU | Offline, CRIU support is planned | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
DRS/Host Maintenance Mode | Ability to put host into maintenance mode which will automatically live migrate all VEs onto other available hosts so that the host can be brought shut down safely | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Distributed Power Management | Distributed Power Management features Ability to automatically migrate VEs onto fewer hosts and power off unused capacity (hosts), wake systems back up when required | No | No | No | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes |
3.2. HA / DR | ||||||||||
Cluster size | Maximum number of hosts in the cluster/pool relationship and maximum number VEs per cluster/pool (if specified) | None | 32 hosts/cluster validated (100 hosts/cluster maximum) - PStorage limitation | Not tested yet | Not tested yet | None | 32 nodes | 64 nodes | 200 nodes | 16 nodes |
Integrated HA | Recover virtual environment in case of host failures through restart on alternative hosts (downtime = restart time) | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Site Failover | Integrated ability to (ideally live) migrate virtual machine data (virtual disk files) to different storage e.g. for array upgrades/migration and I/O management | No | No | No | No | No | No | Manual | No | Integrated Disaster Recovery - manual |
4. Network and Storage | ||||||||||
4.1. Storage | ||||||||||
Supported Storage | Supported types of Storage (DAS, NAS or SAN) | DAS (EXT4) | NAS (NFS), DAS (EXT4) | DAS (EXT4) | NAS (NFS), DAS (EXT4) | NAS (NFS), DAS (EXT4) | DAS, NAS (NFS, ZFS), SAN (iSCSI), Ceph | DAS, NAS (SMB), SAN (iSCSI, FC, FCoE) | DAS, NAS (NFS), SAN (iSCSI, FC, FCoE) | DAS, NAS (NFS), SAN (iSCSI, FC, FCoE) |
Virtual Disk Format | Supported format(s) of the virtual disks for the virtual machines | CT - ploop | CT - ploop, VM - ploop | CT - ploop, VM - ploop\Qcow2 | CT - ploop, VM - ploop\Qcow2 | Any | qcow2, vmdk, raw | vhdx, vhd, pass-though (raw) | Qcow2, raw disk | vhd, raw disk |
Thin Disk Provisioning | Ability to over-commit overall disk space by dynamically growing the size of virtual disks based on actual usage rather than pre-allocating full size. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes, depends on disk format (dm-thin) | Yes (depends on underlying storage driver) | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Virtual SAN | Enhanced storage capability e.g. providing a virtual SAN through virtualized 'local' storage | No | Yes, Virtuozzo Storage | No | Yes, Virtuozzo Storage | Yes, but 3rd party (DRBD 9, Ceph, GlusterFS) | Yes, but 3rd party (DRBD 9, Ceph, GlusterFS, sheepdog) | Yes, Storage Spaces | Yes, Red Hat Storage | No |
Storage QoS | Ability to control Quality of Service for Storage I/O or Throughput for CT/VM | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes, VMs only | Yes | Yes | Yes |
4.2. Network | ||||||||||
Advanced Network Switch | Centralized virtual network configuration (rather than managing virtual switches on individual hosts), typically with enhanced networking capabilities | No | No | No | No | No | Yes, Open vSwitch support | Yes | OpenStack Neutron Integration | Open vSwitch integration |
Network QoS | Ability to create and store master images and deploy virtual machines from them | Only bandwidth limits | Only bandwidth limits | Only bandwidth limits | Only bandwidth limits | Only bandwidth limits | Yes, with Open vSwitch | Yes | Yes | Yes |
5. Others – most of features are relevant only for Virtuozzo editions | ||||||||||
Memory deduplication for binary files | Memory and IOPS deduplication management that enables/disables caching for Container directories and files, verifies cache integrity, checks Containers for cache errors, and purges the cache if needed | No | Yes, pfcache | No | Yes, pfcache | No | No | None | None | None |
Completely isolated disk subsystem for CTs | Yes, ploop | Yes, ploop | Yes, ploop | Yes, ploop | Yes, with LVM | Yes, LVM, ZFS, or loop devices | None | None | None | |
API\SDK | OpenVZ API for Ruby, LibVirt | Virtuozzo SDK, LibVirt | Virtuozzo SDK, LibVirt | Virtuozzo SDK, LibVirt | LibLXC, API for Ruby, Python 2, Haskell, Go | Proxmox VE uses a REST like API (JSON data format) | Windows SDK | RHEV-M API: REST API, SDKs | XenAPI, XenServer SDKs | |
Image Catalog integration | Integration with 3rd-party image catalog services of popular server applications and development environments that can be installed with one click. | No | No | No | Yes Virtuozzo Application Catalog | No | Yes (Turnkey) | None | None | None |
Kernel maintenance | Ability to upgrade kernel with minimal downtime. | KernelCare service integration | kernel rebootless update (vzreboot) | No | Yes ReadyKernel Service | KernelCare service integration | KernelCare service integration | None | KernelCare service integration | KernelCare service integration |
Power Panel | A tool used for managing particular virtual machines and containers by their end users. | No | Yes | No | Yes | None | None | None | None | None |
Secure for using in public networks | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No[2], [3] | No[2], [3] | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
6. Commercial | ||||||||||
Open Source | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No | No (but there is Open Source edition(oVirt)) | No (but there is Open Source edition) | |
License\Subscription | No | Yes | No | Yes | No | No | Yes | Yes | Yes, Enterprise Edition | |
Support | Both community and commercial support | Commercial support | Community support | Commercial Support | Yes, Canonical Ltd. | Both community and commercial support | Commercial support | Commercial support | Both community and commercial support | |
EOL policy | 5 years of support | 7 years of support | TBD | 7 years of support | 11 years of support] |