FUD is FUD is FUD

Both side spew out plenty of it. Choice is good and having another solid option can help keep both sides honest. I to have used both side by side and I have no problem saying that both are good platforms.

Most of your response is pretty fair. Though I did have issue with this:

The thing that has actually moved me more towards the MS setup is when you get into the management side. This to me is where VMware does not compete on a data center level. Silos are bad in IT and although virtualization has revolutionized the data center they have created a management and process silo. This is still something that VMware has not been able to answer. With System Center and the suite of tools it can manage both physical and virtual and even VMware via its controls.

I don’t see vSphere as creating silos. Virtualization as a whole creates a paradigm shift. Blending layers and skills (Hyper-V approach) doesn’t solve a host of issues with that are out of scope. This includes network , storage, and security management. The management from within vSphere is focused on managing the virtualization layer as a whole and all of it’s touch points. It has to integrate with layers above (OS, Application) and below (Storage, Networking, Computing). Microsoft’s approach is still focused from the system admin level and layers above the hypervisor. Managing physical and virtual Microsoft servers is a limited benefit in reality. I don’t think it is a bad move. I just don’t think it is game or decision changing functionality.

VMware vSphere is moving towards changing the game while maintaining existing process lines. Examples are the Cisco Nexus 1000v and tools like EMC’s Storage Viewer. It is easy to say that VMware is creating a silo. But, with virtualization completely changing the way infrastructure is consumed and managed, VMware is in a much better position to server large management needs. That said in smaller 100% Microsoft shops, Hyper-V can serve well in use cases.

As for the Live Migration versus VMotion, I am sorry it is very very close to a tie in every scenario I tested in a similar loaded setup. Ironically I found when doing one system VMware was a bit faster, but when scheduling 10 Microsoft had them moved and running on average faster.

This was with 10GE.

I have seen the numbers on 10GE VMotion (in fact I will post them soon). The efficiency of vSphere is incredible on 10GE and there isn’t much more to squeeze out without compression or more use of bitmapping. I am sorry but I find it very difficult to believe that the above is true with scheduling. I would wager that the vSphere configuration is not ideal. Perhaps a network configuration from poor VKernel config? Maybe you could post the configuration and results for others to test and replicate?

Beyond that let us not think that cost does not play in here, especially for many shops now days. You have to by the exact same licenses whether you are running your Windows servers on VMware or Hyper-V. The big thing on that is if you buy Server 2008 R2 Data Center you get Hyper-V and can run any number of Windows VMs on that server at no additional licensing cost. You could have 40 Windows VMs running on there and those licenses are taken care of under the one license. That gives you Hyper-V, Live Migration, and almost all of the other tools, without even having to purchase SCVMM.

So right off the bat you are right. A windows data center license will give me Hyper-V. But, I can play that game too. Technically a ESXi license is completely free and if I am running a oper source OS then I am cheaper. With application-level redundancy I don’t need Live Migration. My point is, it is extremely easy to throw out an ideal model and prove worth with almost anything. If I were to throw out a VDI model for example, all of a sudden all your OS licensing savings disappear completely.

But what about cost savings in density? What about cost savings in less storage because of thin provisioning? And what do you do when you need to virtualize 4-CPU Windows 2003 Server? Throwing free OS licensing on top of virtualization can be a short term CapEx benefit; but this is at the cost of many long term benefits.

I think this is a good article on a shop that had to make a similar decision: http://www.bythebell.com/2009/10/denton-county-tx-migrates-to-vmware-vsphere-for-a-100-virtualized-data-center.html

Thanks,

.nick

I would say up until R2 VMware had a large tech advantage over Hyper-V in both support and feature set. However I can honestly say having used both literally side by side the gap has closed significantly in all areas.

Support wise I have seen support from both sides have issues, but when actually getting OS support for either Linux (Red Hat) or Windows Microsoft actually won hands down. They actually were able to solve the Red Hat issue in house without pushing my team off to RH. For Hypervisor issues VMware was stronger in correcting issues. Most likely to larger install base and better trained support for their product because of such.

As for the Live Migration versus Vmotion, I am sorry it is very very close to a tie in every scenario I tested in a similar loaded setup. Ironically I found when doing one system VMware was a bit faster, but when scheduling 10 Microsoft had them moved and running on average faster.

This was with 10GE.

The thing that has actually moved me more towards the MS setup is when you get into the management side. This to me is where VMware does not compete on a data center level. Silos are bad in IT and although virtualization has revolutionized the data center they have created a management and process silo. This is still something that VMware has not been able to answer. With System Center and the suite of tools it can manage both physical and virtual and even VMware via its controls.

Beyond that let us not think that cost does not play in here, especially for many shops now days. You have to by the exact same licenses whether you are running your Windows servers on VMware or Hyper-V. The big thing on that is if you buy Server 2008 R2 Data Center you get Hyper-V and can run any number of Windows VMs on that server at no additional licensing cost. You could have 40 Windows VMs running on there and those licenses are taken care of under the one license. That gives you Hyper-V, Live Migration, and almost all of the other tools, without even having to purchase SCVMM.

Now if you buy VMware you could still buy that license, and have unlimited VMs on that host, but you still have to buy VSphere and then additional levels to get vMotion.

So I agree there is FUD and I agree there are plays for both sides, but I would not say the gap is near what it is made out to be.

Just as a background I have ran VMware ESX inboth smaller shops ~200 servers and large shops ~1200 host.

I think at the core we agree. Sorry if the abstraction piece was distracting to the support discussion for you. It was a higher level comment on the approach to virtualization. I was linking how these differences *lead* to different ideas and avenues on how things are supported between layers.

I could question how useful Red Hat or Novell support would be through Microsoft or what market share of Linux shops would ever want to adopt. But that would be just worthless speculation without a specific situation to apply and things are changing too fast to predict.

I think there is nothing wrong with Microsoft making these agreements. If fact, these are essential for them to be able to market Hyper-V as a true hypervisor. My point once again is that they are limited in the scope of what Hyper-V can do because of the way they have approached virtualization.

Thanks for the comment, really appreciate your feedback.

Took a chance to look at your products too, interesting stuff.

.nick