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VMware, the market leader, can command the top
price (look at Red Hat). The other leading
product is XenSource, but it is not cheap. Both
VMware and XenSource offer free solutions, but
they may not be what you are looking for. Since
XenSource is open source, you have the the option
of implementing and solving your support
problems by using your own tech abilities and ingenuity.
As you look over your options, keep in
mind that Red Hat will be shipping Xen technology
and management tools in RHEL 5. SUSE and
Mandriva are also said to be working on including
Xen technology, Sun is bullish on Xen for its
products and Windows is also getting into
virtualization. Some virtualization efforts are
looking not at virtualizing an entire machine
(the way VMware does), but at virtualizing applications.
The entire virtualization field is
complex and in flux, so be sure to begin your
research with a list of your requirements (chips,
OSes, host/guest configuration, etc.) so that you
can see what solutions come closest to what you
want at the price you want to pay. And somwhere
down the road, there may be a common hypervisor
solution that lets more systems enter virtualization more easily.
Finally, if you want to feel you have
left no stone unturned in your searches, you
might look into lesser players such as Parallels, a Mac-centric
product and Swsoft.
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