Microsoft has announced that it is adding Citrix XenServer to the list of hypervisors its management tool, System Center, will support. This support will be available in the next version of System Center, due in 2011. Microsoft already supports VMware. With the addition of XenServer, Microsoft is now in the rare position of being ahead of the hypervisor competition in supporting technologies made by other vendors.
This is where Microsoft believe they have beaten VMware in the virtualisation space – Management.
Citrix also announced that the virtualised version of the comapany's load balancing appliance, NetScaler VPX, will now support Hyper-V, Systems Center, SharePoint 2010 and Exchange 2010. NetScaler users will be able to use the appliance's acceleration, load balancing and security features as a native Hyper-V workload directly from System Center. Citrix says that no network knowledge is required.
NetScaler VPX is a virtual load-balancing appliance that runs on a server, rather than its own box.