Microsoft is playing cheeky again 😉 They’ve posted a video aiming to debunk some VMware commentary about virtualisation:
- No Live Migration (aka VMotion): Coming in Windows Server 2008 R2
- No cluster file system: Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) coming in Windows Server 2008 R2 – it’s a requirement for Live Migration
- Version 1.0, unreliable and un-scalable: I can personally say that’s a bunch of crap. A lot of MS’s site is running on Hyper-V.
- Low Performance: Check my recent blog posts. More rubbish
- MS footprint is very big compared to VMware’s: VMware has a small disk footprint. ESX is on par with Hyper-V for host RAM requirements from my experience.
- VMware claims broad hardware support: Hmm. Check their HCL. You can run Hyper-V on anything you can run W2008 x64 on and can enable DEP and CPU virtualisation assistance in the BIOS.
- End-End System Management: Hyper-V easily wins here. End-end and top-bottom management with VMM 2008 and OpsMgr 2007. Throw in DPM for backup and ConfigMgr for deployment and you’ve got a complete integrated solution.
- Memory Overcommit: ESX has this. Hyper-V does not. They wanted to do it in R2 but couldn’t get it done. It’s dangerous if not managed correctly – there’s anecdotes of one VPS hosting company in Ireland over “bursting” resources and hurting their service badly. I wouldn’t be surprised to see it in the next version of Hyper-V after W2008 R2. I think MS fudge a bit on this answer in the video.
- Pricing: MS hammers VMware on this. ESX is around €5,300 in Ireland. Windows Server Enterprise is around €3,700. Plus Enterprise includes free OS licensing for 4 VM’s! Say you want to run 4 Windows Standard Edition VM’s (around €800 each). The price on VMware is 5300 + (4 * 800) = €8,500. The price on Hyper-V is €3,700.
- You Need VMware: I say pick whatever suits you best. MS gives you an integrated solution and simplifies things. If you’re a Citrix house go for Xen. Right now, if you need VMotion or a very broad guest OS support then go VMware. Make your own decision and don’t buy the marketing FUD.
CSV is not required for Live Migration but is recommended
The thing that bugs me with these sorts of things is that MS keeps saying "coming in R2". Thats not now, they have been saying this since Hyper-V launched about Live Migration. It’s something VMWare has and Hyper-V doesn’t, it’s as simple as that, until R2 is launched MS doesn’t have that capability.
And this is coming from someone who runs and loves Hyper-V, I just don’t think they do themselves any favours by saying "coming in R2" to the biggest feature VMWare has