back to article Forget Paris: OpenStack is not a cheap alternative to VMware

It’s an unusual month which sees me travel to two conferences, but it happened in October, and there's still a part of me that wishes I was on the road again and off to the OpenStack Summit in Paris. At the moment, it seems OpenStack has the real momentum and it would have been interesting to compare and contrast it with …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    VMware versus Hyper V.

    I struggled to find a decent unbiased comparison of VMware versus Hyper V that dealt at the SME level (Vmware Essentials Plus level for instance). Often sites would say something along the lines of "Hyper V is getting better but Vmware is still the only one to recommend" without much more detail or they wouldn't be comparing the latest versions. All Hyper V articles don't seem to say there are any deficiencies with it (until the next version comes out when they say things like "this is a feature that users have been crying out for" etc).

    I'm sure there are decent sites out there with in-depth reviews but I struggled to find them when I was looking before settling on VMware, but would've been willing to give Hyper V a go.

    The really difficult thing with VMware that I found (when researching about 18 months ago) though was the naming. They seemed to have changed the name of the products so often and had such a range of individually name components (each feature having a brand name) with little explanation on their site - Vmware server, ESX, ESXi, vcentre... web interface, vcentre client. They really seemed to expect you to know exactly what each product was with little in the way of a decent introduction.

    1. Hans 1

      Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

      Thank god you are anon ... You know, when you go looking for virtualization solution, you do need to go and do some homework.

      You got confused by Vmware server, ESX, ESXi, vcentre, and vcentre client ? I think there is this great unreliable encyclopedia out there, wiki .... wiki ... oh yeah, wikipedia, ever heard of that ? That should have been step one.

      Step two is you look at the support queries in forums ... with a big pinch of salt, as of course, ppl that are happy with their setup usually do not ask questions on forums.

      Oh, and Hyper-V ? Can I migrate a vm from one physical server to another as seamlessly as with vmware ? You know what, MS have had issues with that since day one .... hyper-v sucks golf balls through garden hoses. That is why OpenStack is an option.

      1. Aitor 1

        Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

        Look here:

        http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=12601

        Live migration from one server to another. Windows Server 2008.

        As a server side VM I think it is ok.. the only problem I see is licensing.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

        EH? I did do research, and went to WIkipedia. As you do a lot more research you work it out, hence settling on a product. My comment was that it wasn't easy as a lot of articles talked about products that had had their names changed (sometimes more than once).

        After a lot of research I understood their portfolio and all their features with their individual brand names. However even today as a complete noob - You've heard about Virtualisation, heard of VMware ESXi, and Hyper V and understand what Virtualisation is and are looking for your first foray with a single host or two. Go to the Vmware website, front page doesn't tell you much so click all products and have a look. You aren't a data centre or a cloud business. Where do you go (rhetorical)?

        It is easy when you know, and after you have done a significant amount of research.

        As for asking questions in support forums - fine for a specific question, useless when doing general initial research.

        Yeah very easy to sit back and say "idiots how can you not know what all these proprietary names and brand terms mean, everyone should know from day one". My comments were remembering back to when I first started looking and VMware didn't make it easy.

        In every industry it is easy to use internal terms or product names and just expect everyone to know what you mean (I don't mean industry terms like hypervisor or virtualisation) but sometimes you have to step back and think - why would a new customer know what "Operations Manager" is or "vmotion" or how ESX relates to ESXi and vSphere and vCentre with vMotion and data protection advanced.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

          @AC: and then, of course, when you do post anywhere asking for help, you get the anti-MS crowd coming in with ill-informed FUD about a product they've no experience of...

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

          Want to know more about VMware? Then get yourself along to a VMUG. There are several running in the UK and a pan-UK event for about 500 attendees in two weeks in Birmingham with a free curry and a pint the night before.

          At any VMUG event you can expect to meet your peers (e.g. SMEs, Enterprises, Councils, Healthcare etc), partner vendors who financially support the events (e.g. Nutanix, PernixData, Nimble Storage etc) and typically speakers from VMware itself.

          Feel free to make your own decision about which vendor and product you want to use, but do so once you've seen the community behind VMware - it's quite a big differentiator in my opinion.

          Disclaimer: I organize VMUGs in the UK :-)

          1. gazthejourno (Written by Reg staff)

            Re: Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

            I'll let this one through the "new commentard" net, along with a polite reminder that if you want to advertise your commercial conferences on the Register, you can pay for the opportunity to do so through our commercial team: ads@sitpub.com.

            1. @lonVMUG

              Re: VMware versus Hyper V.

              Thanks Gaz, much obliged. It's not commercial from the (volunteer, unpaid) organizing committee's perspective, I assure you and the days are free to attend for anyone and everyone.

              OK, we have a large US vendor that we're associated with, but our motivation is very much of giving and sharing information freely and for the betterment of our attendees, whomever they may be.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Keeping with the spirit of the thread

    I second and upvote the quite valid complain about the confusion in the virtualization world about basic concepts and features, partly due to the multiple branding changes, partly due to the rapid evolution of the technology.

    "OpenStack as a cheaper alternative to VMware; it’s not, it’s a long way off that, and hopefully it’ll never be that."

    Could you elaborate as to why?

  3. Jeff 11

    I don't disagree with the idea that OpenStack as a universal alternative to VMWare falls short - but you don't back up your assertion with any reasoning whatsoever.

    Virtualization is a lot more broad than 'just' migrating legacy stacks into VMs. At its core there's nothing in VMWare that can't also be done in OS because of the underlying technologies involved. As far as I can see, it's just the (present) lack of holistic management tools that makes administering OS infeasible for large legacy deployments. I'm sure certain workloads will perform better on VMWare and HyperV but I foresee that this gap will also narrow in the near future.

    If there's one area where I can see a cost differential it's getting in the skilled people to plan and build up the infrastructure in the first place, and the spinup time to deployment.

  4. Nate Amsden

    sadly

    that's not going to stop a lot of idiotic management types from trying......fortunately I don't work for those types at the moment. Having worked with such in the past though, so frustrating..

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Forget Golden Delicious, apples are not a cheap version of bananas and never will be.

  6. boatsman

    so vmware is not

    usable for the way we are going to do application deployments.

    at least, that is what I am reading here. wouldnt mind having some rationale for that :-)

    no more VMware in 5 years time, then :-)

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