0xfeedface Tech musings and rants

Overall, Sun xVM is easy to configure and run. Setting up a virtual machine on a headless VirtualBox installation takes a lot of thought. Setting up a VM with xVM takes a single command with virt-install. In OpenSolaris Build 133, you will be able to have the VM automatically start upon booting up the host OS. I'm very glad I switched from VirtualBox to xVM. xVM appears to be stable and fast.

I have only to gripes about xVM. First, my server has only 4GB RAM installed. xVM limits my host OS to 2GB memory. Since ZFS loves to use all available memory when it's not needed by other applications, I notice that ZFS performance has degraded slightly. Second, xVM uses VNC for remote controlling VMs. VNC is an antiquated, insecure, and inefficient protocol. I prefer the RDP VirtualBox offers over xVM's VNC.

From an administrative perspective, xVM beats VirtualBox hands-down. When combined with ZFS snapshots, xVM offers a complete solution I am looking for in a VM server. xVM has a lot of potential, especially when mixed with other OpenSolaris technologies like Crossbow.

In the end, xVM wins over VirtualBox for server environments.