This is an attempt to help new users decide on a hypervisor based on features that can be controlled through compute.
Whilst the intention is to keep this up to date it was created just after the release of Cactus, so if it says a feature is not possible it may warrant further investigation.
It is also worth noting that the majority of openstack development is done with the KVM/ubuntu and XEN hypervisors. This means that (currently at least) you are more likely to find community support for issues with these hypervisors. As far as the Xen hypervisor is concerned, it is worth noting the following definitions:
XenServer: Commercial, supported product from Citrix.
Xen Cloud Platform (XCP): Open-source equivalent of XenServer (and the development project for the toolstack). Everything said about XenServer below applies equally to XCP.
XenAPI: The management API exposed by XenServer and XCP.
XAPI: The primary daemon on XenServer and Xen Cloud Platform; the one that exposes the XenAPI.
Nova has support for XenServer and XCP through the XenAPI virt layer. Note that this does not imply support for other Xen-based platforms such as those shipped with RHEL 5 or SUSE, which is provided via the libvirt layer.
Please help keep this list up-to-date.
Legend: ✔ indicates support, ✗ indicates the feature is not supported, * indicates there is a caveat to the functionality (more details about caveats coming soon), and a blank cell generally indicates more testing is needed to make a judgment.
Note: QEMU~KVM, LXC~KVM for majority of features, ESX compatibility-Needs testing
Feature |
XenServer/XCP |
KVM |
QEMU |
LXC |
HyperV |
ESX |
ESXi |
Launch |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
Reboot |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
Terminate |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
Resize |
✔ |
✗ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Rescue |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Pause |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Un-pause |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Suspend |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
✔ |
Resume |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
✔ |
Inject Networking |
✔* |
✔* |
|
|
✗ |
|
✔* |
Inject File |
✔ |
✗ |
|
|
✗ |
|
|
Serial Console |
✗ |
✔ |
|
✗ |
✗ |
|
✔ |
VNC Console |
✔* |
✔* |
|
|
✗ |
|
✗ |
Attach Volume |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Detach Volume |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Live Migration |
✗ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Snapshot |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
✔ |
iSCSI |
|
|
|
|
✗ |
|
|
Set Admin Pass |
✔ |
✗ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
Get Guest Info |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
|
Get Host Info |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
|
Glance Integration |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✔ |
✔ |
Service Control |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
|
|
|
-VLAN Networking |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✗ |
✔ |
✔ |
-Flat Networking |
✔ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
✔ |
-Security Groups |
✗ |
✔ |
|
✔ |
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
-Firewall Rules |
✗ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
✗ |
✗ |
-Routing |
✔ |
✔ |
|
|
✗ |
|
|