Comparing Microsoft and VMware Virtualisation
I was just reading Yankee Group's report - "Virtualization Price War: VMware's Little Big Horn? ", and just had to share this with you (I think it speaks for itself):
If you haven't got access to the report (which we didn't pay for - before you ask), just ask & I'll get you a copy.
Dave.
Comments
Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
Martin, Sorry I didn't reply to this - I've turned off the notifications of new comments on my blog (am getting a lot of spam comments). Sounds like a great idea. I haven't got two sets of any hardware (just my demo laptop). How about I come down to you - you work for VMware in Cork (right)? I imagine you'll have some kit lying around (and will be OK with breaking the EULA)? Drop me an email & we'll arrange something. DaveAnonymous
January 01, 2003
Dave, you are probably making a lot of great comments here. Please don't "shoot the messenger" - the report was done by the Yankee Group (not me). I posted the price comparison chart to get people thinking - it certainly wasn't meant to be taken as the gospel (we all know that there are many ways to buy stuff - and to get free stuff). We did recently change the price of System Center - you'll probably find that it's just our website that's not up to date. My personal opinion? I recon Virtualisation is only just starting (less than 10% of servers are virtualised) - there are some very "interesting" things happening (the Dynamic Datacenter, etc). Who knows what will happen? We'll probably all end up running a modern equivalent of a mainframe and be using very intelligent "dumb terminals"? I’m just happy to be working in IT during this very exciting time! Dave.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
I can run 7 VMs on my laptop!! What are you doing Tim? Has anyone ever read the VMware End User License Agreement? They won't let you publisise your performance benchmark tests without their approval: "You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study. Please contact VMware to request such review." I'd love someone to do the comparison tests and go public with the results. It's interesting that no one has done so yet! I still think that "most people" just need the ability to move a VM without losing client connections (i.e. a couple of seconds is fine). Keep the comments coming guys - this is interesting.. Dave.Anonymous
January 01, 2003
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January 01, 2003
Unfortunately VMware was not consulted on this report, and the Yankee Group report contains many inaccuracies. We've released some corrections here: http://blogs.vmware.com/virtualreality/2008/02/those-darn-de-1.html A short excerpt: Exhibit 2 indiscriminately mixes VMware’s bundle and a la carte pricing, making it very difficult for readers to get an actual apples-to-apples cost comparison. If the table is meant to be a cumulative account of Microsoft and VMware pricing (i.e. add up all the rows), then there is significant double-counting in the VMware column. If the rows in the table are meant to be interpreted individually, then there are gross inconsistencies between how VMware and Microsoft’s costs are shown. Most casual readers will assume the table represents cumulative cost for both companies since they see the word “Included” throughout Microsoft’s column.Anonymous
February 26, 2008
Hi dave I would love to see the report from yankee group. We are in the middle of choosing vmware or ms virtualization, and that would help. bill.bacoyiannis@mckesson.ca ThanksAnonymous
February 27, 2008
If it wasn't for VMware's innovation, I seriously doubt Microsoft would have gotten this far with their virtualization endeavors. Recall Microsoft's first virtualization product wasn't anything that they had even developed - they bought it from Connectix and slapped the MS logo on it. Microsoft marketing claims dominance while standing on the shoulders of the pioneers responsible for setting the bar where it's at today. Microsoft's virtualization technology isn't up to standards yet. Case in point, when Windows Server 2008 releases in the future, their technology STILL wont' be up to standards because MICROSOFT HAS NO LIVE MIGRATION FEATURE. I can't put into words the flexibility that VMware VMotion affords production environments. Invest in Microsoft virtualization and I guarantee at some point you will suffer virtual machine outages due to a scheduled or unscheduled Microsoft host outage. The boss will want an explanation for this. But I get your point. On paper, Microsoft virtualization is cheaper and depending on the company or environment, I'll be the first to admit it may be more cost effective. In their traditional style, Microsoft has been attacking VMware with low price points on their products. Microsoft can afford it and they are buying their marketshare with their deep pockets rather than earning it with their technology and innovation. JasAnonymous
February 28, 2008
I disagree. VM has set no technical bar, and indeed has bought or licensed many of their so called innovations. But in true EMC/IBM style, VM has priced themselves right out of the market buy ensuring the most basic virtualization functions become another SKU. VMware was first in many areas, but the Hyper-V days are here, and now customers can have a choice, just as in Oracle v SQL days.Anonymous
February 29, 2008
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February 29, 2008
Speaks for itself? Hardly! As other posters have pointed out, this chart doesn't even scratch the surface of the differences....Anonymous
February 29, 2008
Competition is always good, for both VMWare and Microsoft. I would take VirtualPC more seriously if the Linux support hadn't been removed when Connectix was bought over. Even now it's unclear if non Windows OS's can be hosted in the latest version on not. Any pointers Dave? Will keep an eye out for you at the IWTC.Anonymous
February 29, 2008
Hi Dave, I think they could have done a much better price of comparing the actual costs. I use both Microsoft and VMware virtualization products, but to be clear I have a bias towards VMware's products. I'm sure other's will comment on the technical merits of the products but I'd like to just focus on the costs
- The charts states that Guest Licensing is included, due to the purchase of Windows Enterprise Edition (EE) license. That's a correct statement, but not really that practical in the real world. How many customers are going into virtualization to just run 4 virtual machines, which the EE includes, on a single host. Rather for low resources virtual machines a customer is looking to get 4 to 8 VMs per CPU core. It would have been a more fair comparison to use DataCenter licensing, in which case either product requires Windows licensing of $3000 per processor so in a 4 CPU server the cost would be $12K per host for both products
- The live migration / HA / vSMP / Dynamic Resource Management pricing is incorrect. Here's a good source for pricing on VMware products - http://www.vmware.com/products/vi/buy.html. With ESX Enterprise all those options are included in the price. You do require the VirtualCenter Management Server but that is one time cost so if you have 10 servers in your host farm, then it is only $500 per server. VMware also offers some bundle pricing with reduces the initial cost of VirtualCenter for people managing 3 server or less.
- Management pricing - with VMware you have a one time cost of $5000 and you can then manage any version of ESX which runs in price from $500 (ESX 3i) to $5750 (ESX Enterprise). Microsoft's web site lists the price for the Systems Center Server Management Suite at $1290 (http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/svrmgmtsuites/howtobuy/default.mspx) and I would take it this would be per server (i.e. a CAL) and you would still have to license the server running SCCM, DPM, OM, etc.
- Library - templates are included with VirtualCenter plus you have a large library of pre-configure virtual appliances available on the VMware and other websites. Lab Manager as a product has no comparison to a server running Windows 2003/2008 with VirtualServer. Note sure how they came to that conclusion, but you can be glad that you didn't pay for that research. Overall if you want to provide a useful cost comparison, you should provide the overall cost that either solution would require. Start with 5 servers (2 x quad core CPU, 32 GB RAM), FC or iSCSI SAN, all the VMware / MS licensing (including the management pieces) and then you'll have a better idea what your real world costs will be. Besides the gross inaccuracies in license costs provided here, this chart doesn't provide a realistic cost comparison. Further, if you've been around the SQL performance studies like this www.tpc.org, you'll know that it's just not about how much, but how fast for how much. The same applies here. How many servers (say 2 quad core CPU with 32 GB) running MS Virtual Server R2 would you need to equal the performance of 5 such servers running ESX? If you do that comparison, you may find that the premium you pay for ESX Enterprise is recovered. It will be interesting to see the results of such testing with Hyper-V and ESX 3i, but with Virtual Server 2005 you're not going to match the performance of ESX. To quote a MS case study of the largest Virtual Server farm - 1400 virtual machines on 375 hosts (http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/casestudy.aspx?casestudyid=4000000664) gives a ratio of just over 4 VMs per host. The ratio drops when you consider that for production they run 1000 VMs on 275 hosts. In fairness, the study does not provide sufficient information about the nature of the VMs being run, but a 4 to 1 ratio isn't much to brag about. An aside, I think MS would do us all a service by providing more info on Hyper-V on it's website, Half the stuff I find today is still related to the beta or RC and what applies to the released product is lacking in depth. Perhaps you could provide some good technical links for that.
Anonymous
February 29, 2008
Linux virtualization is provided by Xen in Win2008, so it's becoming a pretty variegated thing... AWoAnonymous
February 29, 2008
Are you kidding me? Daven "Live Migration vs. Quick Migration is always an interesting one. How many customers "really" need close to zero downtime? I don't come across many (most just need the services to be up and to have the ability to move that service). Quick Migration is quick (a few seconds). How much are those few seconds worth?" This is a joke right?Anonymous
February 29, 2008
Plenty of customers need close to zero downtime. If Microsoft can't see that, they've really left their blinkers on. Here's another good wrap :http://blog.scottlowe.org/2007/07/23/live-migration-vs-quick-migration/Anonymous
February 29, 2008
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March 01, 2008
I want some of whatever drugs the idiot that wrote this drivel is on. Must be good stuff. Can they be sued for incompetence?Anonymous
March 01, 2008
Frankly speaking, there could be better virtualization product than Microsoft trying to bring on now. BUT, I can tell you for sure VMware is on top of the market for enterprise virtualization deployed out there with large corporations. As far we know, in 2010, they will be 85% enterprise business deploying virtualization and VMware took almost majority of the market shares. I'm curious, the editor has ever use M$ and VMware VI3 product in real world? Has he ever try to consult with ESX expert out there and know in depth with VMware licensing piece before he send this comparison chart? ESX expert speak for yourself.Anonymous
March 02, 2008
If you compare the free VMware product with HyperV, you'll see that you'll have a more mature product and one that works. How do you even know HyperV will work? Look at Vista SP1!Anonymous
March 02, 2008
I was just catching up on all the responses on this blog over the weekend, and got a page not found for 15 minutes there. I presume a live "quick" migration was in process? Was the host down for maintenance? That just emphasizes one of the main points!Anonymous
March 03, 2008
Add this information from a recent Microsoft blog to the Yankee Group report: "Operating system installation on Hyper-V is slower than on Virtual Server / Virtual PC." "I do not expect this to change much for the first release of Hyper-V." Source: http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2008/02/26/hyper-v-and-slow-guest-os-installation.aspxAnonymous
March 03, 2008
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March 07, 2008
Dave, where did you get your information. most everything on the VMware side is incorrectAnonymous
March 18, 2008
2nd attempt at posting this, the blog timed out again. This is well worth a look. http://vmwaretv.blip.tv/#745090 Quick Migration is nothing but an orchestrated fumble, in no way is it seamless, or even close to true portability We're not just advocating VMWARE VMOTION Dave, there's a massive community based around it. Unfortunately all MS have is the marketing clout to push their inferior solutin. KIMAnonymous
April 07, 2008
Kim... in your video... how much RAM was your VM and what backend fiber were you running on?Anonymous
July 09, 2008
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July 21, 2008
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July 21, 2008
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September 09, 2008
Dave Don’t know if you remember me, I met you at one of your Microsoft Virtualisation Seminars in Cork a couple of years ago when you were presenting Veridian (now Hyper-V). First of all, congratulations on the full release of your Hypervisor, hope that all goes well for you and Microsoft. I have been reading your Blog posts over the last couple of years and following the Virtualisation blogs and comments with some interest. When we met, you were talking about VMware’s EULA where it says "You may use the Software to conduct internal performance testing and benchmarking studies, the results of which you (and not unauthorized third parties) may publish or publicly disseminate; provided that VMware has reviewed and approved of the methodology, assumptions and other parameters of the study” and I also see that you have blogged about this since. As I said to you at the time, the reason for this is because quite simply that people who do not understand Virtualisation and its architecture and have published “benchmark” testing comparing VMware's Virtualisation with different types of architectures, i.e. comparing “Apples” with, well, “Potatoes” or "Carrots". You made a comment on that blog that “I'd love someone to do the comparison tests and go public with the results” so now that Microsoft has released a Hypervisor and as such you are now in a position to compare “Apples” with “Apples” I am offering to work with you to do just that. I am based in Cork but am in Dublin at the moment and will be for the rest of this week, I can find some time to call into you in Sandyford and do a quick comparison between ESXi and Hyper-V and publish the results live online. Let me know what day you are free where we can put ESXi and Hyper-V on a couple of identical physical infrastructures side by side with a couple of servers, shared storage and networking, and run through some benchmarks. While we are at it we can also have a look at the differences between VMotion and Quick Migration and compare the actual costs for each solution, putting to bed the Yankee Group's report you bolgged about. Looking forward to meeting up with you again. Regards MartinAnonymous
October 01, 2008
Dave Thanks, just saw the reply, working on a big project in dublin at the moment, will email you next week. Martin