VMWAREstill king?

[mikegoes101]

Is VMWARE still the king of virtual machines or is there a new competior out there to weigh in?

 

[crazyfinx]

depends on the use,

I like virtualbox for workstations

VMware is still top dog in the enterprise level for virtual server environments, xenserver is the next contender with Hyper-V being up at the same level.

 

[dx2]

Hyper V on 2008 R2 combined with Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2 is very very slick.

VMWare is king of enterprise - but I feel Hyper V is poised to dominate the the small the medium size virtualization setups. Support for clustering for HA and dip its toes into the hyper visor arena.

 

[mikegoes101]

Very interesting I haven't even heard of most of these as my school just teaches us with VMWARE. I hope to start using some of these just for experimenting now.

 

[lizardking009]

If you are a Windows only shop, Hyper-V is very compelling due to its much lower price point. And for Linux, Hyper-V drivers are in the Linux kernel as of 2.6.32. They'll be in Redhat corporate distros before long. It also supports live migration, HA, and all that good stuff. It isn't as polished as VMware in many areas, but it is rock stable and has better hardware support.

I don't expect VMware to be the reigning champion for too many more years. They can only demand a premium based on name for a little while longer. Think Novell...

 

[DeChache]

The more I work with Hyper-V the more impressed I am with it. VMware as of now is probally still king but I know looking at VMwares prices Hyper-V is looking more and and more attractive. Ubuntu Server runs good on Hyper-V and MS's products run like champs. It is also more hardware friendly. VMware is great but its to the point where its starting to depend on application.

 

[J-Will]

If you are a Windows only shop, Hyper-V is very compelling due to its much lower price point. And for Linux, Hyper-V drivers are in the Linux kernel as of 2.6.32. They'll be in Redhat corporate distros before long. It also supports live migration, HA, and all that good stuff. It isn't as polished as VMware in many areas, but it is rock stable and has better hardware support.

I don't expect VMware to be the reigning champion for too many more years. They can only demand a premium based on name for a little while longer. Think Novell...

Very well put, I am inclined to agree.

 

[Vorex]

Don't skip Xen--for enterprise it's definitely worth looking at. If money is no object VMware > Xen > Hyper-V. But if you just need it to work on the cheap, Xen > *

 

[SpaceHonkey]

I guess I'll have to step in with my VMware experience.

Where do I expect VMware to be in the future? On top. Think Cisco - not Novell.

Hyper-V is still in it's infancy. I certainly think it will continue to grow into a more mature product, and the price point is certainly worth considering for exclusive Microsoft shops, but VMware is certainly not going away. But for us, migrating our Novell infrastructure and linux boxes was very simple (back before they were supported on Hyper-v). vMotion and svMotion (svMotion not available on Hyper-v) are rock solid, with no hiccups what-so-ever. And it's been able to do it well before 2008 R2. Fault tolerance (VM running simultaneously on multiple hosts) is another feature Hyper-v is yet to support.

 

[lizardking009]

I guess I'll have to step in with my VMware experience.

Where do I expect VMware to be in the future? On top. Think Cisco - not Novell.

I don't know if I agree. Its a lot easier to replace a hypervisor/file server/software solution than it is to redo your basic network infrastructure. Cisco was lucky and got intrenched early. People have their network set up the Cisco way and don't want to change. We're migrating away from Cisco to HP because of costs and it has been a huge pita to redo configs. For a large org, savings from a cheaper vendor will be totally wiped out due to time spend reconfiguring.

On the other hand, servers are added and replaced very frequently and it is very easy to run them in parallel. When the Hyper-V has been out long enough and has met enough of VMware's feature set, I think their market share will grow by leaps and bounds. After all, do you want to pay for Windows + VMware or just Windows if VMware doesn't get you that much?

Hyper-V is still in it's infancy. I certainly think it will continue to grow into a more mature product, and the price point is certainly worth considering for exclusive Microsoft shops, but VMware is certainly not going away. But for us, migrating our Novell infrastructure and linux boxes was very simple (back before they were supported on Hyper-v). vMotion and svMotion (svMotion not available on Hyper-v) are rock solid, with no hiccups what-so-ever. And it's been able to do it well before 2008 R2. Fault tolerance (VM running simultaneously on multiple hosts) is another feature Hyper-v is yet to support.

My prediction: Hyper-V will support svmotion and/or FT at the next major release. MS wants VMware's market share.

 

[lopoetve]

but that's assuming VMware doesn't sit still too. They're not exactly sitting around - they introduce new features all the time.

 

[lizardking009]

but that's assuming VMware doesn't sit still too. They're not exactly sitting around - they introduce new features all the time.

Very true, but my point is that once Hyper-V is "good enough" for a large enough chunk of the market, they'll start to claim that market in a big way.

 

[swatbat]

If you are a Windows only shop, Hyper-V is very compelling due to its much lower price point. And for Linux, Hyper-V drivers are in the Linux kernel as of 2.6.32. They'll be in Redhat corporate distros before long. It also supports live migration, HA, and all that good stuff. It isn't as polished as VMware in many areas, but it is rock stable and has better hardware support.

I don't expect VMware to be the reigning champion for too many more years. They can only demand a premium based on name for a little while longer. Think Novell...

I agree with the above.

but that's assuming VMware doesn't sit still too. They're not exactly sitting around - they introduce new features all the time.

I still think VMware is going to loose in the long run. They have to compete with cirtix, ms, and sun/oracle. As the Sun/Oracle and MS vm options get better one is going to have to weight the costs of not using their option when it comes with their software. Why is someone going to pay for vmware and pay for support when their support contract with MS will cover its option and they are giving the product away when you buy their operating systems?

 

[lopoetve]

Sun and Citrix are in a totally different field than VMware and microsoft.

MS is the only serious competition, and they're 4 years behind the ball game. And MS Hyper-V support (at least for critical production support) costs more than the base 2k3 support.

VMware owns 98% of the Fortune 500, and 100% of the Fortune 100 as customers. I'll let you think about who all that includes (There's a bounty out for the remainder of the fortune 500 too).

 

[lizardking009]

MS is the only serious competition, and they're 4 years behind the ball game. And MS Hyper-V support (at least for critical production support) costs more than the base 2k3 support.

VMware owns 98% of the Fortune 500, and 100% of the Fortune 100 as customers. I'll let you think about who all that includes (There's a bounty out for the remainder of the fortune 500 too).

Novell used to have 100%, too. Where are they now?

 

[lopoetve]

Novell didn't keep innovating and advancing, and were in a very different time in the beginning of directory services and large consumer based datacenters. Until microsoft offers something ~better~ than VMware, there won't be a significant change.

 

[NetJunkie]

Sun and Citrix are in a totally different field than VMware and microsoft.

MS is the only serious competition, and they're 4 years behind the ball game. And MS Hyper-V support (at least for critical production support) costs more than the base 2k3 support.

VMware owns 98% of the Fortune 500, and 100% of the Fortune 100 as customers. I'll let you think about who all that includes (There's a bounty out for the remainder of the fortune 500 too).

This. Sun and Citrix are all but dead in the commercial market. We're not doing any of either. We're getting a slight bit of interest in Hyper-V but it's due to licensing arrangements, not the technology. VMware keeps getting better...they keep making great partnerships (I'm sitting in a Cisco VCE class right now). We'll see more Hyper-V later as it gets better, but anyone that compares them side by side almost always goes VMware, unless pressured by management due to an Enterprise Agreement.

And yes, there is a big bounty on that last 2% of the Fortune 500.

You aren't paying for a name with VMware. They do things..very important things..that no one else can. If a customer even mentions DR testing and/or failover to me that's instantly VMware. If they want true network management and monitoring that's instantly VMware (think Cisco Nexus 1000v). High scalability... Better and tighter integration with almost every storage and management vendor.

 

[lopoetve]

Exactly.

What does anyone have to counter DVswitches?
What does anyone have to counter the Nexus 1000V?
What does anyone have to counter FT?
What does anyone have to counter Site Recovery Manager?
What does anyone have to counter VMware Data Recovery?
What does anyone have to counter Storage vMotion?
What does anyone have to counter a fully integrated patching and update solution for windows/linux/AND the hypervisor?
What does anyone have to counter a fully integrated and embedded product built into your server motherboard (ESXi Embedded)?

This isn't even touching things like vApps, etc that exist for management ease of use.

This is just stuff off of the top of my head. Now sure, the others may get some of those in the future - they're certainly capable of doing it, but right now? VMware ESX Server has all of those already, out, in production. MS, sun, citrix, etc are playing catchup, and have a long way to go before they're even approaching parity - let alone whatever VMware might bring out in the future.

 

[4saken]

Citrix targets a different segment anyway, and integrates seamlessly with VMware/Xenserver/Hyperv setups. Their virtual app delivery is eons beyond anything VMware can do right now just based on protocls alone, but thats really the only place i see them ahead. However, they do work very closely with MS and have some very exciting things over the next few years coming out. VMware doesnt need worry yet, as long as they keep innovating.

 

[neotheo]

VMWARE my have all the features in a pretty windows GUI but its performance still blows. KVM will take some of the spotlight for the REAL professional IT out there. This is my opinion from my experience and my differ for others.

 

[Shane_c82]

VMWARE my have all the features in a pretty windows GUI but its performance still blows. KVM will take some of the spotlight for the REAL professional IT out there. This is my opinion from my experience and my differ for others.

Can a REAL professional please explain that?

 

[neotheo]

KVM (for Kernel-based Virtual Machine) is a full virtualization solution for Linux on x86 hardware containing virtualization extensions (Intel VT or AMD-V). It consists of a loadable kernel module, kvm.ko, that provides the core virtualization infrastructure and a processor specific module, kvm-intel.ko or kvm-amd.ko. KVM also requires a modified QEMU although work is underway to get the required changes upstream.

Using KVM, one can run multiple virtual machines running unmodified Linux or Windows images. Each virtual machine has private virtualized hardware: a network card, disk, graphics adapter, etc.

The kernel component of KVM is included in mainline Linux, as of 2.6.20.

KVM is just another hypervisor. Its fully supported by Red Hat and in my own testing I was able to run double as many VMs on KVM as I was able to on Citrix XenServer and ESX4. So from my own usage it is my opinion that KVM will be a very good choice for IT Professions (not management wanting pretty graphs) when it picks up more momentum.

One particular reason why KVM stands out for me is the recent development of KSM which has lowered my ram usage considerably while maintaining the same level of performance.

Yes I am biased. No i am not looking to troll.

 

[Shane_c82]

If it's just another hypervisor how does it trump VMware and all its features?

 

[neotheo]

If it's just another hypervisor how does it trump VMware and all its features?

Alot of the features you pay extra for in VMware have been available in KVM/Linux for quite a while now. Perhaps the single major downside of KVM is that it requires a bit more technical know-how than VMware to deploy effectively.

 

[crazyfinx]

KVM would be great for a small environment, but I think for use in an enterprise environment where you have 500+ hosts vmware, xen server, and hyperV would triumph. Open source anything is big red flag in enterprise environments at least in my experience. KVM might perform better at the moment but in regards to everything else it is subpar to other 800 pund gorillas in the market. I can't imagine trying to support different locations under the same infrastructure with KVM. Also VMware is not all UI, it's based on linux, Not sure what you've tried in the past but esx and esxi have heavy support in scripting and console cli use. The UI is great but use of the console cli / perl scripting / powershell triumph in the ability to use all functions versus using its client gui. Like you also said Vmware is also much easier to deploy. But its also not free. But I hope KVM can become a contender in the future, looks very promising with its performance capabilities.

 

[lopoetve]

VMWARE my have all the features in a pretty windows GUI but its performance still blows. KVM will take some of the spotlight for the REAL professional IT out there. This is my opinion from my experience and my differ for others.

ok, what are you talking about exactly?

KVM is just another hypervisor. Its fully supported by Red Hat and in my own testing I was able to run double as many VMs on KVM as I was able to on Citrix XenServer and ESX4. So from my own usage it is my opinion that KVM will be a very good choice for IT Professions (not management wanting pretty graphs) when it picks up more momentum.

One particular reason why KVM stands out for me is the recent development of KSM which has lowered my ram usage considerably while maintaining the same level of performance.

Yes I am biased. No i am not looking to troll.

KVM is missing every enterprise level feature that any of its competitors has though.

And ESX has TPS and the balloon driver that does much the same thing. KVM Just got that? ESX had it in version 3.

 

[lopoetve]

Alot of the features you pay extra for in VMware have been available in KVM/Linux for quite a while now. Perhaps the single major downside of KVM is that it requires a bit more technical know-how than VMware to deploy effectively.

Where is KVM's vmotion, storage vmotion, centralized management, shared storage filesystem, or high availability? Those are all basic features of ESX that have been around for 4+ years.

KVM is a competitor for single box installs, sure - and to be honest, can be faster at those. But it's not an enterprise level product at all.

 

[/dev/null]

Where is KVM's vmotion, storage vmotion, centralized management, shared storage filesystem, or high availability? Those are all basic features of ESX that have been around for 4+ years.

KVM is a competitor for single box installs, sure - and to be honest, can be faster at those. But it's not an enterprise level product at all.

Go use proxmox ve. It is all of that except HA and that is on the roadmap. You can always roll your own HA solution as well. Proxmox VE is based on KVM.

Oh yeah, and it's free!

 

[lopoetve]

Roll your own in a massive production environment? Without outside support? Won't happen. And does it do storage migration? Fault tolerance? all the rest? it's got some, but not all of the features.

 

[Thuleman]

Go use proxmox ve. It is all of that except HA and that is on the roadmap. You can always roll your own HA solution as well. Proxmox VE is based on KVM.

Oh yeah, and it's free!

The problem is that free is rarely actually free. The product itself may be free but you pay magnitudes more in payroll then you would have spent on a proper VMware setup. The reason free software is free is because of the effort it takes to set it up and reliably maintain it.

Tbh, whenever I hear "it's free" I think of some small shop where the IT guy works 80 hours a week while only getting paid 40 just because he enjoys monkeying with stuff. In any real business the opportunity cost is easily the most important factor when it comes to deploying something or other. In the case of VMware the licensing as such is steep but the opportunity cost is extremely low in the long run which is why real business which are concerned with the bottom line use it.

No other product out there provides such a low TCO paired which such top of the line support. That's why VMware is and will remain King for a long time.

 

[Adam12176]

What he said. Makes me think of the place I interviewed at for a part time job while still in college.

No sitebook, no documentation of any kind, and they had just migrated their entire linux based business to zimbra. No documentation, on anything. I just....wow. Yeah, it's free, as long as you have some serious techie maintaining the whole shebang.

Could you imagine setting all that up and handing it over to someone else to maintain? The learning curve would be a straight 90 degrees.

 

[lizardking009]

The problem is that free is rarely actually free. The product itself may be free but you pay magnitudes more in payroll then you would have spent on a proper VMware setup. The reason free software is free is because of the effort it takes to set it up and reliably maintain it.

This is why I roll my eyes at the type of Linux zealot who screams about how free software is free and will save you money.

 

[lopoetve]

Amen @ that. there are times for it, and times not for it. Note that every major linux shop uses RedHat or SuSE, with a full support contract Almost none of them roll their own random debian or other mix in full production.

 

[/dev/null]

Have you guys actually tried what I suggested or are you stereotyping?

Not all free solutions cost extra payroll. Not all paid solutions are easier/cheaper.

 

[Adam12176]

Have you guys actually tried what I suggested or are you stereotyping?

Not all free solutions cost extra payroll. Not all paid solutions are easier/cheaper.

I know there's no way I could convince anyone in charge of a downtime move to a software app they have never even heard of in a live production environment, that's for sure. I think I can sum this up in 3 main points: I want something easy to use, requiring little to no administration, and it to just work - if it doesn't work, I want someone on the other line to make it work. Time is money.

And to that point, please lol at the following page - http://pve.proxmox.com/wiki/Category:Troubleshooting - yes indeed, it's blank. I would be scared to death to use something like this in a production environment; at least without extensive use on a test bench and creating/solving problems.

 

[4saken]

Have you guys actually tried what I suggested or are you stereotyping?

Not all free solutions cost extra payroll. Not all paid solutions are easier/cheaper.

proxmox is too incomplete for me to trust it in a large enterprise environment. The iSCSI LUN available issues scare me way too much being that a couple misclicks could completely blow away a volume.

I think its an interesting project with good potential, but nowhere near mature enough for me to consider in our environment.

 

[lopoetve]

Have you guys actually tried what I suggested or are you stereotyping?

Not all free solutions cost extra payroll. Not all paid solutions are easier/cheaper.

"Roll your own HA"? That's extra payroll, and no support. No enterprise level customer is going to do that.

 

[SHaFT7]

I've gotta say, it's nice to hear people actually talk the real-world line of "time spent is also money spent" Just because it's free in initial purchase price does not mean it will cost less once you are done putting it in.

and then someone has to 'run' it.

I've toyed with vmware server 1.x and 2.x, liked it. Tried to get Xen running, failed . (not enough time being the owner of the business). Finally rolled ESXi 3.5 on a basic box, one spindle, extremely low use VMs (xp box for remote in and a print server) and it just runs and runs with no hassles.

For that reason, I'm considering VMWare ESXi 4 for a bigger box and moving all of my production SBS, SQL, and BES boxes to it. Now if I could only find the budget!

 

[/dev/null]

"Roll your own HA"? That's extra payroll, and no support. No enterprise level customer is going to do that.

I work for an enterprise....we use a lot of custom stuff because that is all that meets our needs. YMMV of course.

 

[lopoetve]

I work for an enterprise....we use a lot of custom stuff because that is all that meets our needs. YMMV of course.

Probably so, but for most of them, production level requires production level support, which you can't get with your own custom rolls. Especially when there is an alternative out there.