back to article By the numbers: The virtualisation options for private cloud hopefuls

VMware, Hyper-V ... XenServer? When it comes to virtualisation, these are the three most frequently cited options. And this would have been OK in the days before cloud, when virtualisation was “just” something for the boys and girls down in the sysadmin branch of the IT department cared about. Now we do have cloud, and private …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "by the established Linux-kernel-based hypervisor market."

    Linux kernel based Hypervisors have never had more than ~ 1% commercial market share. The market leader VMware used to have a Linux based console and management tools, until it switched a more powerful and secure PowerShell based setup, but the VMware hypervisor was never based on the Linux kernel...

    "Distributed Resource Scheduling: Hyper-V equivalent – None"

    Wrong - Hyper-V Intelligent Placement + Dynamic Optimization are broadly equivalent.

    Distributed Power Management: Hyper-V equivalent – None

    Wrong - Hyper-V Power Optimization is broadly equivalent.

    1. Bill M

      Are you sure VMware's ESXi hypervisor is not based on the Linux kernel ?

      I quote from The Register "Linux kernel developer Christoph Hellwig has sued VMware in Hamburg, Germany, over alleged violations of the GNU General Public License."

      http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/03/05/vmware_sued_for_gpl_violation_by_linux_kernel_developer/

      Hellwig, a Linux bod, will look pretty silly in court if you are right.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Are you sure VMware's ESXi hypervisor is not based on the Linux kernel ?"

        Yes, certain.

        See http://www.v-front.de/2013/08/a-myth-busted-and-faq-esxi-is-not-based.html

        for a very detailed answer...

        1. Bill M

          Are you implying that El Reg tells porkies ?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Are you implying that El Reg tells porkies ?"

            No, only that you don't read carefully. ESXi hypervisor products != ESXi hypervisor itself.

            1. Bill M

              Okay, feel free to be pedantic if you you wish.

              It just looks like Linux, smells like Linux and tastes like Linux...............

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                "It just looks like Linux, smells like Linux and tastes like Linux"

                Then it could be any OS running an SSH session.

                Let me draw this in crayon for you:

                In say KVM, the hypervisor loads as a bolt on to the Linux kernel, whilst in ESXi, the hypervisor loads first and as it's first virtual OS instance, it runs a cut down Linux like OS as it's console.

                The ESXi hypervisor itself does not contain and has never been based on the Linux kernel.

                1. Bill M

                  If you are happy to think so, then good for you. I have only been dabbling with Virtual Machine technology for three decades, I expect you've been at it a lot longer.

                  1. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    Same here. Angels, pins, dancing... makes me wistful for the two years I spent talking theology and biblical archeology with a Jesuit professor.

                  2. Anonymous Coward
                    Anonymous Coward

                    "I have only been dabbling with Virtual Machine technology for three decades"

                    And you still don't know the basics about the VMware hypervisor?!

              2. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                A normal general purpose Server Linux OS (plus Xen/KVM) is somewhere around 4GB size. Hyper-V is around 5GB-8GB in size. VMware ESXi is around 180MB. Thats what allows larger VMware customers to leverage auto deploy to PXI boot ESXi from scratch. If it was Linux, how do you "strip out" 95% of the code while adding in functionality that does not exist is any other platform today with only 180MB of code to work with?

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "The market leader VMware used to have a Linux based console and management tools, until it switched a more powerful and secure PowerShell based setup"

      That doesn't even make sense! Sure VMware has a PowerShell module for Windows if you wish to use it, but it has absolutely nothing to do with what's in the hypervisor OS. But don't let facts get in the way of a good old shameless plug for your employer. *sigh*

      "but the VMware hypervisor was never based on the Linux kernel..."

      At least you got something right! :)

      1. TheVogon

        > That doesn't even make sense!

        It does - VMWare switched to only supporting Powershell for remote scripting via PowerCLI

        > Sure VMware has a PowerShell module for Windows if you wish to use it,

        It being the only supported option if you want to use a remote command line interface

        > but it has absolutely nothing to do with what's in the hypervisor OS.

        Other than support for Powershell remote access to the API is built into it of course...

    3. drexciya

      For Dynamic Optimization System Center Operations Manager is required. And still it isn't the equivalent of the DRS functionality.

      Distributed Power Management in VMware offers the option to put hosts in Standby mode, which isn't something I've seen in Hyper-V, if I missed something there, please tell me.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "For Dynamic Optimization System Center Operations Manager is required. And still it isn't the equivalent of the DRS functionality."

        No it isn't, you only require Virtual Machine Manager and it IS very much like DRS.

        "Distributed Power Management in VMware offers the option to put hosts in Standby mode, which isn't something I've seen in Hyper-V"

        Dynamic Power Optimization can completely power down and power up Hyper-V hosts.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "vShield: Hyper-V equivalent – None

    Windows Storage Server + Forefront Endpoint Protection is broadly equivalent.

    "generally offers the best combination of companion products too, like networking solution VMware NSX"

    Microsoft's SDN solution is more mature and doesn't require custom hardware as it's standards based. If you want to find NSX "better" you really should say why...

    1. vee Hybrid

      The cost of ownership and maintenance is poor with Hyper-V against VSphere. Mandatory reboots with Hyper-V, where vSphere is just so slick. This is what most of customers say and prefer vSphere.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "The cost of ownership and maintenance is poor with Hyper-V against VSphere. "

        The TOTAL cost of ownership including licensing, support, etc is way lower with Hyper-V.

        "Mandatory reboots with Hyper-V, where vSphere is just so slick"

        There have been numerous previous updates for ESXi requiring a host reboot - way more than for Hyper-V Server and anyway Hyper-V transparently migrates hosts to another cluster node when you do need to reboot.

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    And KVM?

    But there is no mention of KVM; yes it is Linux only for the host, and yes there are multiple management engines (everything from the command line, to web interface, to native applications). But still it is the most widely used virtual machine software used on Linux because it is built into the Linux kernel by default and it available for all Linux distributions. The big difference is that KVM has no overt marketing, and it tends to be heavily used by hosting providers rather than the enterprise; this is probably the reason that "IT" managers don't choose it, no flashy front end that an idiot could use (and hence would), and no marketing kickbacks.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: And KVM?

      "this is probably the reason that "IT" managers don't choose it"

      The main reasons that I wouldn't choose it as an IT manager is that is that for a commercially supported option like RedHat, it tends to cost just as much as or more than the other flavours, but with likely a higher overall TCO, and also that pretty much no one supports their software explicitly running under KVM, but they usually do on Hyper-V and / or VMware.

    2. zootle

      Re: And KVM?

      "yes it is Linux only for the host", not so. The Joyent public and private cloud runs on the Illumos based SmartOS. KVM has been part of Illumos for several years.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: And KVM?

        I really like the SmartOS, and how it offers some of the finer features of Solaris. ie: ZFS and dtrace. And now that they've ported KVM to it, we get even better performance.

  4. DannyH

    DRS in Hyper-V

    I don't agree with this article completely as it mentions Hyper-V does not have a DRS equivalent. If anybody is using Hyper-V in the real world they will almost certainly be managing it with SCVMM, in which case the licensing model also grants use of SCOM. By utilising SCOM integrating, its pretty easy to enable a DRS equivalent function in Hyper-V.

    Fault tolerance is also a strange feature from VMware, in that if a system is so critical you cannot stand to wait for a VM to boot then shouldnt you really deploy application layer availability instead? I know it has some uses, but is it really a key feature for comparison?

    1. TheVogon

      Re: DRS in Hyper-V

      "If anybody is using Hyper-V in the real world they will almost certainly be managing it with SCVMM"

      VMware DRS is included only with VMware vSphere Enterprise and VMware vSphere Enterprise Plus Editions, so even with the SCVMM management tools included to provide an equivalent service as DRS, Hyper-V Server is still far cheaper.

      However SCVMM is not the only / lowest cost choice for managing Hyper-V - See for instance http://www.5nine.com/5nine-manager-for-hyper-v-product.aspx#features

    2. Benno

      Re: VMware FT

      You make a valid point, but sometimes it just can't be done in the application space. FT can give an additional layer of comfort for such critical workloads.

      I was planning on using FT for ay DHCP server - but it still has limitations, and requires _very_ fast networking to keep the VM's in lock-step.

      (from memory, a dedicated 10gbe link - or faster)

      1. TheVogon

        Re: VMware FT

        "I was planning on using FT for ay DHCP server "

        There is an easier option these days. See https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd296672(v=ws.10).aspx

    3. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Vmware FT

      @DannyH

      vSphere Fault Tolerance is a cheaper solution than an app layer solution. Cheaper in terms of SW development and maintenance; the function is "in the hypervisor"; it can be easily added to vms (4 vCPUs or less) administratively. Though the cheaper presumption assumes a campus environment with available bandwidth on a fibre backbone.

      Administratively, it is setup on top of vSphere HA. But rather than doing a vm restart as HA does, FT picks up effectively "at the next instruction" following a failure.

      In short, it provides Tandem Computer like Fault Tolerance for a licensing fee and networking; which has been popular in the financial and transaction processing industries.

  5. jake Silver badge

    Define "cloud".

    If you define it as "all my stuff is available from anywhere, at any time", my personal cloud has been up and running since the late 1970s. See:

    http://forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2009/11/16/cisco_hosted_email_pusher/#c_625870

  6. thondwe

    Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

    Read a few of these sorts of things across the web, and most are inaccurate - not matching features in a VMware SKU with a similar feature in SCVMM + HyperV.

    Broadly these days they are comparable and if you're a greenfield site then it's likely to come down to costs - but for Windows Workloads Microsoft make it hard to justify VMware, they just keep throwing in features in the price - Windows 2016 will have SDN a la NSX for example... - and you'll likely need to licence Windows and System Centre even in a VMware environment...

    If you're an established user of one or other product, then jumping ship is more difficult to justify due to the local skills/knowledge you'll have in your staff.

    Suggestions out there that this state of affairs is reflected in VMware's making most money from established customers and it trying to catch up with Azure via "vCloud Air".

    Anyway, PLEASE do some research before posting articles with obvious glaring omissions...

    1. TheVogon

      Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

      "Broadly these days they are comparable and if you're a greenfield site then it's likely to come down to costs"

      I would frame it as VMware has more features / is more mature, but Hyper-V Server is usually significantly cheaper and is good enough for many.

      "Windows 2016 will have SDN a la NSX for example"

      Windows Server has had that since Server 2012. Azure runs on it now. See http://blogs.technet.com/b/windowsserver/archive/2012/08/22/software-defined-networking-enabled-in-windows-server-2012-and-system-center-2012-sp1-virtual-machine-manager.aspx

      " it trying to catch up with Azure via "vCloud Air"."

      This is one of Microsoft's major Azure benefits versus say AWS - full Hybrid Cloud out of the box.

      1. Maventi

        Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

        One huge advantage of VMware's offerings lately is that they are becoming increasingly less dependent on Windows, so for shops where Windows is a minority (or non-existent) OS then it's far more compelling than Hyper-V.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

          One huge advantage of VMware's offerings lately is that they are becoming increasingly less dependent on Windows"

          LOL, except for having to use Powershell to manage it via scripting of course as BASH wasn't up to the job....

          "so for shops where Windows is a minority (or non-existent) OS then it's far more compelling than Hyper-V."

          Hyper-V Server is totally free with all features enabled and doesn't require Windows installed at all. For instance you can use Hyper-V Server under OpenStack.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

            "LOL, except for having to use Powershell to manage it via scripting of course as BASH wasn't up to the job...."

            Powershell is indeed an option (and a good one at that) but far from a requirement. I've automated an enormous pile of vSphere stuff using Perl and Python, for example. I don't care what your silly opinions are on those tools either, I'm just pointing out that there are many good ways of achieving scripted management of vSphere.

            "Hyper-V Server is totally free with all features enabled and doesn't require Windows installed at all. For instance you can use Hyper-V Server under OpenStack."

            OpenStack support in Hyper-V does make it a compelling option for some cases. But outside of that I can't see any evidence that it is deployable and manageable without Windows-based tools (Server Manager, PowerShell, MMC, etc). I haven't tried it myself as Windows makes up less than 3% of the large infrastructure I manage, but I'm happy to be corrected on that if we can keep a mature discussion going. :)

            1. Anonymous Coward
              Anonymous Coward

              Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

              "But outside of that I can't see any evidence that it is deployable and manageable without Windows-based tools "

              You can run it totally from the Powershell command line on the Hyper-V host, or via solutions like OpenStack or even vCentre. No Windows required.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Yet another poor HyperV vs VMware vs ... article

          One of Hyper-V's advantages is an order of magnitude fewer security holes than ESXi.

          If you run ESXi have you patched this weeks critical holes yet?

          http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/10/01/vmware_patches/

  7. Probie

    These days.....

    These days, I fail to see why you need to run just one the afore mentioned hypervisors. They are not hard, they are not rocket science.

    1. TheVogon

      Re: These days.....

      "I fail to see why you need to run just one the afore mentioned hypervisors."

      Running a zoo costs money - in skills, time and toolsets.

      1. Probie

        Re: These days.....

        I agree, but for me the question is can you save money by cutting license costs vs the cost of skills, time and toolsets?

        There are enough tools out there that cater for multiple providers. Hyper-V and KVM or Xen for example. Vmware are naturally enough difficult pains in the arse.

    2. drexciya

      Re: These days.....

      I'm not sold on SCVMM myself, it's not rocket science, but the GUI of SCVMM really needs some work. Even MVPs have been complaining about it.

    3. zootle

      Re: These days.....

      Agreed. We run a combination of SmartOS (KVM) for performance critical loads and VMware for the run of the mill machines. The SmartOS hosts double as backing stores for VMware, so there is a good synergy between the two environments.

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Why throw away your performance on virtualisation when you can simply use containers and get full performance. Switched about a year ago and never looked back.

    1. TheVogon

      "when you can simply use containers and get full performance."

      They are limited in scope at the moment - with say Docker only supporting Linux, and App-V only supporting Windows. Microsoft / Docker are working on a universal format that can potentially contain any OS / platform binaries. Expect that late this year.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        I bet Microsoft turns that into a licensing nightmare for at least a bit. I'm "interested" but not hopeful on the first two iterations.

    2. drexciya

      True if you have the applications that are compatible with containers. But if you run "old-school" applications or legacy software, you really want the isolation that comes with VMs. Like always, there's no solution which satisfies everyone's needs. There's a place for both containers as well as VMs.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        How exactly does an application need to be compatible with containers? If you simply install a full OS inside the container almost any application can run in it. The only exception I can think of is applications that load and unload kernel modules on-the-fly. The number of these is very limited and most of them you can get away with loading these kernel modules on the host.

  9. Phil Dalbeck
    Facepalm

    What, no mention of KVM + Openstack as a 4th horse? For shame...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "What, no mention of KVM + Openstack as a 4th horse"

      KVM doesn't scale as well as the other 2, can only run on top of Linux unlike the other 2 which are dedicated hypervisor layers, and has only ~1% market share - and OpenStack is a big old mess that requires editing lots of non structured text files to configure - no one wants that sort of non scalable crappy solution these days.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      "What, no mention of KVM + Openstack as a 4th horse? For shame"

      Usually the each way money stops at third place....

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