The impact of the Linux strategy on the data center

Almost all data centers have Windows servers, and 70% of data centers have Linux servers. The compatibility between Linux and Windows is undoubtedly a good supplement to the data center, which can reduce costs and simplify data center operations. Novell is an absolute leader in Linux and Windows compatibility.

When evaluating these questions, you need to ask the following questions:

Is the compatibility between Linux and Windows significant to your data center?

Whether there are factors in your data center that impede Linux and Windows compatibility, such as political issues, data center location, and so on.

The compatibility between Linux and Windows has little impact on the data center unless you plan to use this compatibility.

Data center management tools

There is a big difference between Novell and RedHat in data center management tools. Novell has been striving to become a leader in the field of data center management. It tries to provide physical machines (Linux, Unix, and Windows) and virtual machines (Hyper-V, VMwareESX, and Xen) provides dedicated management tools. ZENworks and PlateSpin management tools are two core products in the Novell data center management tools field.

Red Hat has two major management tool platforms: Red Hat Nerwork and JBossOperationsNetwork for RHEL management. RedHat focuses on developing open-source management tools suitable for its own products and does not involve the entire data center management software industry.

Novell's dedicated data center management tool strategy theoretically allows you to reduce the complexity of the data center (fewer tools, fewer suppliers) and reduce the cost of management tools. However, this is a large set of dedicated tools used to manage diversified platforms. Generally, it cannot manage important components of other dedicated platforms.

Different virtualization strategies

Novell's virtualization software strategy is mainly based on its Xen-related products and its cooperation with Microsoft, VMware, and other vendors. It regards SLES as a "perfect customer management system" because SLES has good performance in Hyper-V, VMwareESX, and Xen.

Red Hat uses KVM (Kenel Virtual Machine) as its main system management tool in the future. later this year, they will release its RHEL5.4 version. RedHat will provide comprehensive support for Xen through the RHEL 5 series, and then focus on KVM.

Nowadays, it is very important to select a single vendor to virtualize the data center workload. This vendor may be Microsoft or VMware, because most of the workloads required for data center virtualization are Windows workloads. Microsoft and VMware occupy the market in this field. My suggestion is that you use Hyper-V or ESX to virtualize Windows workloads and use Novell's Xen or RedHat KVM to virtualize Linux workloads.

How does Novell or RedHat's virtualization software strategy affect your data center? Xen advocates that the operating system should be independent of Hypevisor. RedHat indicates that the new LinuxKernel technology will directly improve the performance of KVMhypevisor, because the new schedule program is configured, and the energy consumption management and security aspects are also greatly improved.

Although Amazon EC2 is based on Xen, we found that the market share of Xen is still declining in the long term, because RedHat has already focused on KVM, cisco is also very close to Microsoft and is developing corresponding management tools for Hyper-V. The development of RedHat requires you to migrate XenVirtual servers to HVM to improve support for KVm, but this usually takes some time.

Speaking of Xen, Cisco has a higher market share than Novell and VMware. However, considering the relationship between Cisco and Microsoft and Hyper-V, Cisco may become a leading Xen supplier in the long run. Novell does not fully support KVM at present, but will do so in the future.

If you want to select an open source management tool for virtualization load, you will have to make a choice between Xen and KVM. Today, Xen has been accepted by many enterprise users. If you want to purchase Hpypervisor, first review whether you have been using Xen for years and determine whether KVM is available for enterprise products.

The above is a simple analysis of the data center market.