I am looking to get a start in the cloud computing market, but from the ground up. I have been through the ringer with VM-Ware claiming free, but meaning $5-20k for things you actually need out of it. While XenServer has been Citrix'ed with arbitrary limitations added that you only find out about later as well in key aspects (such as stable resource pools). Xen source seems good, but only if you have one or two full time employees to manage it via command line. KVM, I haven't had time quite yet to try. But I suspect it is probably, while not limited on purpose to force you to buy something, lacking in key areas due to it being in development.
Is there any virtualization solution out there that doesn't screw you and has the ability to allow for a fully functional VPS farm?
I am looking for something with management like VMware vsphere client, or XenCenter that can manage the hypervisors, and also have stable hypervisors to run VM/VPS systems on (Primarily Ubuntu linux).
Is there a full featured frontend for Xen Source yet out there?
Edit: Also backups of the VM's (deduplicated block level would be nice) are absolutely needed.