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Citrix vs. VMware in open source Xen cloud initiative

By Alex Goldman on August 31, 2009 4:54 PM

Amid many VMware-related VMworld announcements, Citrix announced today that Xen.org, the home of the open source Xen cloud computing project, will build an open-source cloud infrastructure called the Xen Cloud Platform (XCP).

"Today Xen is already the most widely used hypervisor in the service provider market and the community will be able to build on this momentum to develop a complete, open source, cloud-optimized Xen virtual infrastructure platform," said Ian Pratt, creator of Xen and founder of Xen.org, in a statement.

The project aims to build open standards for virtualization management, improve the allocation of virtual workloads including transitioning workloads between datacenters, build a virtual switch, and enable massive cloud infrastructures.

A challenge to VMware?

It all sounds like a challenge to VMware, and specifically a challenge to VMware's latest core software product, vSphere 4.0. For example, a virtual switch, namely Cisco's Nexus 1000V virtual switch, played a large role in the launch of vSphere 4.0.

A key executive admitted that VMware looms large in the psyche, but claimed that Xen is simply providing features its users need.

"Does the Xen community fear a 'v' imprinted on every Cloud? Having spent the week before VMWorld briefing press and analysts on our intentions, and getting a read of their views, it's likely that a few will see this as a reactive move," admitted Simon Crosby, Citrix CTO, in his blog.

"This has nothing to do with KVM," Crosby added.

Crosby denied that Xen was simply reacting to VMware.

"The project has a strong commitment to its installed-base and to delivering features that will enable [Infrastructure as a Service] IaaS clouds to evolve beyond today's virtual private server model toward rich virtual private data centers, by offering a powerful set of enterprise-class infrastructure virtualization features," he said.

Fuelling rumors that Citrix employees have been asked by VMware not to leave their 10' x 10' booth at VMworld, Crosby concluded his blog post with a jailbreak image titled, "you can't lock Xen in a 10 x 10."

It appears that a challenge has indeed been issued.

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