Citrix XenServer vs. VMware ESXi 5 vs.

Microsoft Hyper-V Service for Windows Server 2008: operative systems supported (host and guest) and performance
This tests are done in a Workstation computer, not in a Server computer. Are only introduction tests to experiment before start working with a server machine.

Citrix XenServer
Host OSs (in which the VM is installed): Own Linux OS (a Linux kernel modified) Guest Oss (systems you can install on the VM): Windows XP/2003 Server (others?), Linux, Solaris, xBSD, Plan 9, GNU/Hurd/Mach, OZONE and another generic OSs Management tools (client): Citrix XenCenter Performance (tests done in a Workstation Core 2 Duo, 3 GHZ, 3 GB RAM, Host virtualized in a VMware Player): poor, before installing any guest, makes the host really fast

VMware ESXi 5
Host OSs (in which the VM is installed): Own OS (is a 'bare-metal', really a Linux kernel modified, very fast and light) Guest Oss (systems you can install on the VM): Windows, Linux, Solaris, Darwin, FreeBSD/OSx86, Netware, OS/2, SCO, BeOS and another generic OSs Management tools (client): VMware vSphere Client Performance (tests done in a Workstation Core 2 Duo, 3 GHZ, 3 GB RAM, Host virtualized in a VMware Player): very fast

Microsoft Hyper-V Service for Windows 2008

Host OSs (in which the VM is installed): Windows Server (2008 the first version) Guest Oss (systems you can install on the VM): Win 32/64, Linux (SUSE Linux, RHEL, CentOS x86-32/x86-64) Management tools (client): included in Windows Server Performance (tests done in a Workstation Core 2 Duo, 3 GHZ, 3 GB RAM, Host virtualized in a VMware Player): poor (overload of Windows Server 2008)