http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-main.aspx

Pricing range

Management Cost

VMware vSphere Standard $795 per CPU

Virtual vCenter server $4995 to manage the full infrastructure

Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard $1,209 per Host

Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise $3,999 per Host

System Center Server Management Suite Datacenter (SMSD)  $1,498 per processor

-: MS Windows Hyper-V 2005 R2 VS VMware VI3:-

We had a large debate internally on how to post the prices of both products & on which base to compare them. We have almost got to the point we were about to exclude pricing from the comparison. Though at the end we decided to include the Windows 2008 pricing in our equation, as there is no way you can run MS Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V without paying for Windows 2008 R2 License. Don't jump at us yet, but we are not covering ESXi neither Hyper-V 2008 R2 Server in this comparison, where both of them are a free product so the word free was left out of both products in this comparison. We believe that shall be fair enough

Please don't get mislead by the word Hyper-V is free, as its not always that way. If you are going to use MS Windows 2008 R2 Hyper-V, you will always have to pay for the Windows 2008 R2 OS even if you are are planning to only run Linux or Windows 2003 where you are not going to use that license for anything else.

- Another important side of the cost of Hyper-V Virtualization Solution & VMware virtualization which usually get ignored is the management application cost. VMware has Virtual Center for one fixed cost of Virtual center for $4995 and can manage unlimited hosts, where with MS to get the same functionality you will need to get System Center Management Suite Enterprise which cost $1498 per CPU. So the management hidden cost for Hyper-V will depend on how many servers your virtualization infrastructure will have. It can go quite steep hidden cost with hyper-V.

- When it coming to cost, you should compare the versions which give you the features you need of both products. If you require all the Hyper-V features, then your equivalent to that will be VMware ESX advanced, as the feature in the VMware Enterprise & Enterprise Plus is still not available at any version in Hyper-v. Furthermore, the advanced version has some features that is not available in Hyper-v, but its the least version that has the full equivalent features to Hyper-V.

In addition, in VMware vSphere you can run more virtual machines on the same specs machine as VMware offer memory over commitment and waste less resource than Microsoft Hyper-V solution in most cases. Don't let the initial cost per host fool you. Make sure you calculate your cost per VM or preferably by service, not per initial cost of each host. Remember your business require services not virtualization hosts & will check the cost per the service provided, not per Virtualization Host. It does not matter for them if you have obtained the Virtualization host for a cheaper price, but end up costing them more per service. For example, if your first virtualization solution host cost you $8,000 where the second solution cost you $10,000 per host where the first solution require 10 hosts to run the solution & the second solution require only 7 hosts to run the solution. You will find the second solution to be more cost effective although its more expensive per host.

- If you are getting one thing of the cost comparison then let it be to do a TCO per service study of the solution you are going for instead of just the initial cost of your Virtualization hosts. Make sure you calculate the management tools & maintenance of the solutions you are deciding on as these are going to be your real cost. Another great thing is to always ask for a proof of concept for the different solutions, as that usually will make calculating your ROI & TCO more realistic.

sneaking into production, but for most companies still at testing & development environment.

After the release of MS Windows server HyperV R2, HyperV started sneaking into the production of enterprise companies. Its not nearly as spread as VMware into the enterprise production environment, but it started to show up.

In the other side VMware have captured the major share of the virtualization solutions used in  production environment for a while.

 Host Specifications

Hyper-V R2 require an Intel-VT/AMD-V capable CPU, where VMware ESX 4.0 does not require it unless you need to run 64-bit VMs on it. That allow you to run VMware ESX 4 over a relatively older servers than possible with Hyper-V. An example of these servers would be IBM X346, which support 64-bit but does not have Intel-VT. X346 is capable of running VMware ESX 4, but not Hyper-V. Its worth noticing in case you are planning to re-use servers of that generation in your virtualization environment.

Most of the host specifications numbers above are very close, & you might not even need to reach most of these limits.

Though it is important to note the memory over-commitment & Transparent Page Sharing in VMware is claimed to allow you to run VMs with up to twice the amount of the memory in your system. In most environments 1.6 memory over-commitment ratio is quite achievable. Memory over-commitment & Transparent Page Sharing can cut the number of required hosts to run your environment.

When it come to supported hardware & used drivers, VMware & Microsoft has followed a totally different path. There is a tradeoff for each approach. While Microsoft Hyper-V R2 support more hardware as it support every piece of Hardware that MS Windows 2008 R2 support, there is a large trade off for that they use a general operating system drivers. The problem with the general operating system drivers its totally dependant on the hardware vendor & at many cases can tear windows unstable. Its well-known that the major some of windows crashes are due to a bad hardware driver. In addition, a generic operating system driver is not always optimized to run a virtualization load.

As MS Hyper-V R2 is totally dependant on the hardware vendor in providing their drivers, the availability of NIC Teaming & multipathing support is highly dependant on your hardware vendor.

VMware has used a different approach, where they have integrated a virtualization optimized drivers into their out of the box installation. This approach guarantee the performance & stability of the drivers, as well ensure NIC Teaming & Multipathing is available out of the box with any VMware installation without depending on what the hardware vendor provide. The trade-off to VMware approach is they get to support a bit less hardware. Though its worth noticing that VMware supported hardware matrix has grown to include most of the well-known hardware vendor to the limit it does not really limit your hardware choices any more.

 Virtual Machine Specifications

- Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack 6a Server

- MS Windows 2000 x86 (up to 1 vCPU) (minimum SP4)

(Microsoft Supported Client Operating Systems)

- Windows Vista x86/x64 (up to 8 vCPU) (minimum of SP1)

- Windows XP Professional x86/64 (with or without SP1/SP2/SP3) (up to 8 vCPU)

- Windows 2000 Professional

- Windows 3.1/95/98

- Windows NT 4.0 Service Pack  6a Workstation.

- MS Windows 7 x86/x64 (up to 4 vCPU) (Professional & above)

- Windows Vista x86/x64 (up to 2 vCPU) (minimum of SP1)

- Windows XP Professional x86 SP3 (up to 2vCPU)

- Windows XP Professional x86 SP2 (up to 1vCPU)

- Windows XP Professional x64 SP2 (up to 2 vCPU)

- Redhat Enterprise Linux 2.1/3/4/5  x32/x64 (up to 8 vCPU)

- Redhat Linux 7/8/9 (up to 8 vCPU)

- Suse Linux  (most versions are supported including 7/8/9/10/11 & Open Suse)

- Ubuntu (many version are supported)

- Solaris 10/ Netware/ FreeBSD/CentOS/ & other Linux OS's.

- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 x86/x64 SP2 (up to 1 vCPU)

- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 x86/x64 (up to 1 vCPU)

- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5.2, 5.3, 5.4 x86/x64 (up to 1 vCPU)

Its obvious that VMware has the lead on the number of supported operating systems on its Virtualization platform. Even when looking at Microsoft own OS, you are limited by the number of supported CPUs & older operating systems are not supported at all. Even Windows 2008 is limited to 4 vCPU, Windows 2003 for 2 vCPU, & Windows 2000 for 1 vCPU. Even with the very limited of non Microsoft operating systems hyper-V R2 support, It impose a killing limitation of only 1 vCPU supported for any Non-Microsoft OS.

The limit on the number of vCPUs & amount of memory allowed to VMs can degrade the performance & put boundaries in front of virtualizing larger workloads on Hyper-V. Vmware has the lead on supported a higher specs VMs, which gives it advantage at handling larger workload.

Features

If you have wondered why System Center Server Management Suite is used at this comparison & not Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 R2, then we must mention that MS SCVMM alone does not offer much comparing to vCenter. MS SCVMM get most of its value by integrating with:

- System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2

- System Center Configuraiton Manager 2007 R2

- System Center Data Protection Manager 2007

Although after integrating SCVMM with SCOM, SCCM, SCDPM it get a nice set of functionality setting them up & getting them functioning is quite more intense than vCenter. Its worth mentioning the extra amount of resources required to install them hardware wise & Administration wise. It definitely has took us a considerably longer & more hardware to setup System Center Server Management Suites that vCenter.

Yes

No

While evaluating Hyper-V R2 live migration continuously in the same fashion we have stressed VMware VMotion, we have found out VMware VMotion to prove being more mature & stable. We have faced few kernel panic on Redhat 4 & 5 VMs & Blue Screen on Windows 2003 SP2 that we were running on Hyper-V while migrating them across hosts continuously. Its worth mentioning these failures were not consistent & the migration often worked where it failed about 5% of the time for these particular operating systems.

ITComparison

Comments

 For MS Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V to offer similar capabilities of VMware Data Recovery, you will have to integrate SCVMM with SCDPM. This one again prove the requirement of Microsoft System Center Server Management Suites, when comparing Hyper-V with VMware rather than just SCVMM which if implemented a lone would lag behind vCenter big time.

ITComparison

Comments

VMware Distributed switches are great for larger environments, as they can save the administrators from having to provision the same virtual switches and policies per host basis & move the management of the virtual switches to be per datacenter or cluster basis. MS Hyper-V R2 still does not over an equivalent to VMware Distributed Switches

Security

ITComparison

Comments

MS Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-v has a full Windows Server 2008 R2 in its Domain 0, which make it affected by most of Windows Server 2008 R2 security holes & attacks. VMware ESX 4 has a very small foot print subset version of RedHat in its service console, which make it more prune to attacks and security holes than Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V.

ITComparison

Comments

VMware Update Manager can push Hypervisor, Windows guest, & some Linux guest OS patches. In the other hand, Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper management suite can only push the updates to windows hosts/guests.

ITComparison

Comments

VMware VMSafe allow third parties to provide many network protection features like Intrusion Detection System & Intrusion Protection systems that work on the level of virtual switches & between virtual machines. In addition, VMware vShield Zones offer the capability to cut your virtual environment in multiple zones using a virtual firewall that control traffic access the different virtual machines zones. 

Hyper-V still does not offer any equivalent to VMsafe & vShield Zones, which make it harder to secure your virtual environment & harder to cut it into multiple security zones.