It's A Jungle Out There By Dan Kusnetzky published: Wednesday, July 23 2008
Well, the Hyper-V cat is finally out of the bag. Although one could wonder
how the cat got in that bag in the first place, it would be wise to focus on
where it is going to find a home in the virtual machine software jungle.
What's already in the jungle?
Let's consider what's already roaming the virtual machine software jungle.
Each of these is already in the field, satisfying customer demands:
- VMware, the industry lion,
has many versions of its technology and is in the middle of the lifecycle
of the version 3.5 release. The company has significantly improved the
stability, reliability, manageability and performance of its hypervisor.
It also has developed a strong portfolio of products in the areas of
access virtualization, application virtualization, management
(provisioning, streaming, administration, orchestration, automation,
clustering, HA/Failover). Furthermore, it acquired Fusion, a Mac OS
X-based hypervisor, for those of the Mac persuasion.
- Citrix/XenSource, the
industry jaguar, is fielding its distribution of Xen, the open source
hypervisor, combined with a strong portfolio of products that matches that
offered by VMware.
- In the Xen camp we also find
Linux distributions such as Red Hat, SUSE and a host of others as well as
large suppliers such as Oracle, Sun and Virtual Iron.
- In the KVM camp we find
Qumarnet (the originators of KVM) and Red Hat
It's clear to see that this is a very diverse, competitive market. It is
also clear that all of these players have strengths that just may match a
specific organizational need better than the others. Although VMware is the
dominant player, the market is certainly not a one company show.
Microsoft is launching its Hyper-V into this highly competitive market with
the typical fanfare and using its typical lets-throw-one-more-thing-into-the-Windows-pot
tactic. As with other types of technology, Microsoft is throwing virtual
machine software into the Windows package with little increase in price. This
can be seen as another move that will tend to commoditize the market.
Microsoft has learned from past moves that organizations will tend to move
towards the technology that is good enough to get by without too much discredit
but is offered "free" with Windows. This tactic has served it well
over time.
Microsoft has worked very hard to develop a broad ecosystem for its
technology if the slew of announcements from partners heard at TechEd are to be
a gage. It also has worked to integrate this form of virtualization technology
with its other offerings. More work clearly needs to be done to make virtual
machine technology just a part of every organization's IT infrastructure.
Data on compatibility, reliability and performance of Hyper-V is just
emerging. It is very likely that competitors, such as VMware and Virtual Iron
will be able to claim better performance for some time.
Microsoft's software licensing rules are still way to complex and too
restrictive to meet the needs of organizations seeking to make virtual machine
technology a primary tool in their datacenters. One would expect that Microsoft
is going to relax the rules for the deployment of its development tools,
database systems, collaborative solutions and the like. I would suspect that
same will happen with its personal productivity tools as well.
Details of Microsoft's announcement
On June 26, 2008, Microsoft announced the release of
Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the hypervisor-based virtualization feature
included in select versions of Windows Server 2008. Those who have already
deployed the x64 versions of Windows Server 2008 can receive Hyper-V from Windows
Update beginning July 8, while new customers and partners can download Hyper-V tomorrow
afternoon.
Microsoft claims that since the beta release of Hyper-V in February, more
than 250 customers have participated in Hyper-V's early adoption program. Due
to input from customers, Microsoft added additional guest OS support for
Hyper-V. Integration components will also be made available for all of these
operating systems:
·
Windows Server 2008 x86 (VM configured as 1, 2
or 4-way SMP)
·
Windows Server 2008 x64 (VM configured as 1, 2
or 4-way SMP)
·
Windows Server 2003 x86 (VMs configured as 1 or
2-way SMP)
·
Windows Server 2003 x64 (VMs configured as 1 or
2-way SMP)
·
Windows Vista x64 with Service Pack 1 (VMs
configured as 1 or 2-way SMP)
·
Windows Vista x86 with Service Pack 1 (VMs
configured as 1 or 2-way SMP)
·
Windows XP x64 with Service Pack 2 (VMs
configured as 1 or 2-way SMP)
·
Windows XP x86 with Service Pack 3 (VMs
configured as 1 or 2-way SMP)
·
Windows XP x86 with Service Pack 2 (VMs
configured as 1-way only)
·
Windows Server 2000 with Service Pack 4 (VMs
configured as 1-way only)
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
·
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service
Pack 1 x86 Edition
·
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service
Pack 1 x64 Edition
·
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service
Pack 2 x86 Edition
·
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 with Service
Pack 2 x64 Edition
You'll note that Red Hat Enterprise Linux, leading enterprise Linux
distribution, was not on the list. Neither was Sun's Solaris.
Where does this all fit?
Virtual machine software is just one of five different types
of software in the virtual processing segment of the market. Virtual processing
is just one of six segments in the virtualization software market. It's clear that
virtual machine software, all by itself, is not sufficient to create a complete
solution. The success of any virtual machine software offering is based upon
its maturity, how well it integrates into the environment and how compatible it
is with a broad range of operating systems, management tools and both storage
and network virtualization technology. Microsoft still has a ways to go to
achieve the level of integration displayed by other cats in the jungle.
Reliability and availability of virtual machines running on any specific
hypervisor is of strategic importance. Hyper-V doesn't offer VM shadowing for
continuous availability, LAN-based migration allowing workload orchestration
and automation or off-site migration for disaster recovery.
Hyper-V adoption will follow the adoption of Windows Server 2008. If history
is a guide, this adoption will not be immediate. That being said, the big
upside is that even though Microsoft's technology is still in the formative
stages, Microsoft's entry into the market will tend to educate IT and business
decision-makers on the benefits that virtual machine technology could provide.
This education process will tend to benefit all suppliers of VM technology.
Related Links:
Red Hat , SUSE , Sun , VirtualIron, Oracle
Daniel Kusnetzky has over 30 years of industry experience. He is
responsible for research and analysis on open source software,
virtualization software and system software. He examines emerging
technology trends, vendor strategies, research and development issues
and end-user integration requirements. In the past he was executive
vice president for Open-Xchange, Inc., and Program Vice President of
System Software Research for International Data Corporation.
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