Virtualization Management - The Battlefront By Bernd Harzog published: Wednesday, July 02 2008
Now that Microsoft has
shipped Hyper-V, the price of a “commodity” hypervisor is either $0 or $28
depending upon how you buy it. VMware will adjust its pricing, but the
important point is twofold. One, VMware, Microsoft and Citrix all have
different and differentiating management offerings. Two, the market share war
most likely will be fought at the management layer for virtualization as
opposed to at the hypervisor layer.
VMware has the upper
hand in terms of the management pieces for the extended functionality in VMware
Virtual Infrastructure 3. This includes support for HA, DRS, VMotion, and VMFS. Via the announced and pending
acquisition of B-hive, VMware also has the ability to monitor the response time
of the server layers of an applications system, and to take DRS actions based
upon service level violations based upon response time.
Microsoft has taken a
very different tack with System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM).
Microsoft has built support for both the Hyper-V environment and the VMware
environment into SCVMM. You can move Hyper-V VMs from
host to host (via something call “Quick Migration” which is not transparent to
users), and move VMware VMs from host to host (via
Live Migration which is what Microsoft calls VMotion).
SCVMM also includes the
ability to convert VMware VMs to Hyper-V VMs. This includes a conversion of the VM from the VMDK/VMX
format to the Microsoft VHD format. So, Microsoft’s goal (surprise) is to make
it easy for an admin to see both the Hyper-V and VMware environment in one
console, and to make it really easy to convert a VM from a VMware host to a
Hyper-V host. This is only the latest example of Microsoft “embrace, extend and
then extinguish” strategy in action.
What is going to happen
as a result of an almost free hypervisor from Microsoft, and the attendant
management pieces? Microsoft has made Hyper-V attractive and easy to try.
VMware users will find it easy to move Guests from VMware to Hyper-V (after
making a backup of the image in the VMware environment). Applications that can
tolerate small amounts of downtime (which is most applications) will be natural
candidates for conversion to Hyper-V so that IT management can take advantage
of the lower costs of Hyper-V. However, until Microsoft proves the performance,
reliability and manageability of Hyper-V, business critical applications will
either stay on VMware, or on their existing physical infrastructure.
So, Microsoft’s goal is
to poach the VMs from VMware that do not need VMware’s
high end features. VMware will have to respond by making it acceptable for IT
and Business sides of the enterprise to virtualize more business critical
applications than have been virtualized to date. This is where the VMware
acquisition of B-hive is so critical, since it will allow IT to commit to
response time based service levels for virtualized applications to the
Business.
The other front in this
contest will be how to manage VDI. Citrix has so many natural advantages when
it comes to VDI. If Citrix can come up with a good way to manage VDI
deployments, then VDI could be the place where Citrix makes its mark in the
virtualization market.
Related Links:
Microsoft , Hyper-V , VMware , Citirx , VDI - Redo or Breakthrough?
 Bernd Harzog is the CEO and founder of APM Experts. APM
Experts focuses upon the Applications Performance Management industry in
general, and drills down into two segments that are emerging in importance; 1)
the management of applications performance when systems have been virtualized,
and 2) the measurement of true end user experience.
Bernd was most recently CEO of RTO Software, Inc., where he
took the company from a four person startup, to a successful entry into the
Performance Optimization market for Citrix MetaFrame Terminal Servers, and from
there to a new and even more exciting set of product offerings. Prior to RTO
Bernd was the VP of Products at Netuitive where he was responsible for turning
their statistics engine into product that predicted when end user experience
was going to suffer a degradation, and a General Manager at XcelleNet.
Prior to XcelleNet, Bernd was a strategy consultant and
industry analyst. During the launch of Windows 95 and Windows NT, Bernd was a
Research Director for the Gartner Group
focusing upon the Windows Server Operating family of products.
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