Comments on: Tolly Group releases another Citrix vs. VMware comparison

By: Leslie Bunder

Leslie Bunder — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:44:15 +0000

Theres an interesting case study over at 360 the VMware and Xen guys which compares the 2 vendors for what they call “a difficult workload”:
http://360is.blogspot.com/2009/05/citrix-xenserver-case-studies.html

Disclaimer: Im a VMware and XenServer user, don’t ask me about Hyper-V

By: Ken Cline

Ken Cline — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 14:43:52 +0000

While it may be true that you hold a bias towards VMware, you don’t let that bias jade you to the point of hiding “unfavorable” content. I think it is only through showing both sides of the fence that we can keep everyone honest (even VMware )

By: jason

jason — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 12:49:02 +0000

Well Ken, I don’t mean to burst your bubble, but I am biased towards VMware, until a better product comes along that is good for me personally and the businesses that I support. That hasn’t happened (yet). I don’t mind highlighting the competition sometimes because competition is ultimately good for the customer.

By: Ken Cline

Ken Cline — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 14:40:59 +0000

Jason,

Thanks for posting this. I think it clearly shows a couple things:

- You are unbiased in your comments. You report things even when VMware isn’t the “top dog”

- VMware plays fair, at least with testing. This is a test that shows a competitor outperforming VMware, yet it is a VMware approved report. As long as the tester plays by the rules and conducts a fair test, VMware will authorize publication…even if the results are not what they would like for them to be.

Thanks again…keep up the great work!
KLC

By: wharlie

wharlie — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:58:42 +0000

Hi John,

As you pointed out the tests don’t seem to be objective.
Also after going through a heap of Tolly reports, the Vendor who commissions the report always wins.
Most people just focus on the headlines and don’t bother looking at the details of the tests carried out.
It’s hard to be independent when you are being paid by the people you are testing.

By: John Troyer

John Troyer — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 08:36:30 +0000

No tinfoil needed, wharlie — each report was talking about different things. The Tolly report on VMware was much more about usability and manageability.

Note that “scalability” in this report measured how many users could open Excel and Word on a hypervisor running 4 VMs.

You can imagine a different (and I’d suggest more realistic) scalability test that looked at how many total user sessions you can put on that box (eg, by running more VMs on ESX), and using more unpredictable, bursty workloads.

By: wharlie

wharlie — Thu, 16 Apr 2009 02:21:36 +0000

Strange how the VDI comparison commissioned by VMware favoured VMware and the XenApp Workload comparison commissioned by Citrix favoured Citrix.
Either the Tolly Group is fixing the results or the vendors are commsissioning reports they know they will win. Or I’m just a conspiracy theorist, where’s my tinfoil hat.