However in the past couple of years the free version of esxi has moved to HTML5 web management, and in the latest ESXi version the Windows client (vSphere client) requires you to pay for a license a run a central vcenter server/vm in order to manage via GUI (non-web).

There are a few articles posted on how limited the web UI may be in contrast to all the features of the original windows GUI so I started pondering other products that may replace ESXi on my homelab (been an ESXi user since 3.x) but it looks like Xenserver 7.1 was just released and Citrix has been including a lot of Enterprise features on their free Xenserver product and offer a very comparable GUI on Windows as well.

A few days ago (February 23) Citrix just released the latest Xenserver 7.1 version (release link/downloads/changelog). The feature I am most excited about? Docker integration via installing “container management supplemental pack”

Xenserver 7.1 seems to be based on Linux CentOS so installing packages (via rpm) should be pretty easy. I’ll post more information when I get more time to dig into it deeper as I am just installing it on my homelab for testing.

Given the amount of information that is out there on the internet and that I spent quite a few hours trying to find other open source projects / cloud platforms that could be other alternatives, I thought why not make a post linking to all the platforms I have come across during my search, this way it will help someone else to simply click thru opening new tabs.

The hypervisors (they only support VMs):

• vmware ESXi
• XenServer
• Oracle VM (based off Xen server project above)
• Microsoft Hyper-V

The hybrids (allows VMs and containers at the same time under the same host – no need to spin up VMs for containers)

• SmartOS
• Proxmox VE
• Apache Mesos
• Mesosphere DC/OS Open source

Obviously you can also run containers on linux without using a bare-metal hypervisor like the options above. All you need to do is install Docker. But how are you going to manage/monitor/deploy your containers? command line is an option but there’s tools out there.

Container orchestration tools

• Cloudslang
• Kubernetes (the 500lb gorilla of orchestration tools)
• Kontena
• Apache CloudStack (this seems to manage only hypervisors and not containers)
• Marathon (for Mesos and DC/OS)
• Portainer
• Shipyard
• Panamax
• Rancher (a complete platform for running containers – highly complex)

Kubernetes addons:

• Cockpit (multi-server web management)

An interesting platform seems to be Mirantis OpenStack – if you are willing to put in the effort and deploy several of its plugins it looks like you would be able to host VMs, containers and have a web front-end to manage them all. Since this is not a single solution and it requires you to deploy several plugins I am leaving this uncategorized for now.

Let me start by giving you a brief overview of my old system:

• Intel Core 2 Quad Q9450 2.66Ghz LGA 775 95W TDP
• Corsair Builder CX430 430Watt Power Supply
• 4GB PC2-6400 667Mhz DDR2 Ram 1.5v
• ATI Radeon 4800 basic PCI-E graphics (no PCI-E power needed)
• Biostar Tpower I45 Motherboard (I45 Chipset)
• LSI SAS3041E-R SATA II 300Mbps RAID controller
• OS: Ubuntu Linux 10.04
• Storage: Oracle ZFS (via FUSE-ZFS) **
• RAID-Z with four drives (3x 2TB plus one 1TB drive)

As you can see, while idle the system is drawing 130 Watts constantly at a minimum. This becomes a problem since the server is online for 24×7 and thanks to EZ Kill-A-Watt it costs an estimated $30 a month to run the server. About $0.80 a day in electricity alone.

With today’s green technology, Sandy Bridge new processor steppings (Intel Speedstep) and green hard drives (replacing my old 1TB 7200 RPM drive with quieter, lower-power 2TB hitachi), I hope to reduce my idle power consumption at least 20%. Based on $30 a month total cost to run my old server, this means I would be saving $6+ a month on my electric bill with this new build.