|
VMware/EMC |
Microsoft |
URL |
Vmware.com |
http://www.microsoft.com/
windowsserver2008/en/us/
hyperv.aspx |
ITComparison
Comments |
VMware site is
a bit easier to browse in regards of virtualization than Microsoft
site due to the fact its their core business and they don't offer as
much products to jam their site comparing to Microsoft. |
Product Name |
VMware Virtual Infrastructure
VI3i |
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 |
ITComparison
Comments |
It seems that
VMware Virtual Infrastructure 3 is more attractive naming than Hyper-V due
to virtualization being the new infrastructure of the DataCenter. |
Pricing range paid product |
Free |
Free |
ITComparison
Comments |
Both Products
are 100% free downloadable software. VMware reply to Microsoft free
MS Hyper-V server 2008 by releasing thier VMware ESXi for free.
|
Primary usage |
Production Environment |
- Test and Development
- Basic Server Consolidation
- Branch Office Consolidation
- Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)
|
ITComparison
Comments
-: MS Hyper-V
2008 Server VS VMware ESXi :- |
VMware
ESXi has been in the market for over two years. It had been pushed
by VMware to be used in production & to replace their normal ESX
servers in larger installation as its faster & have a lot smaller
foot print which highly reduce the attack surface.
In the other hand,
although Microsoft Marketing team has been bargaining about their MS
Hyper-V Server 2008 & how it has a smaller attack surface & faster
speed than their full fledge server they still don't seems to
recommend it for primary production use. The below is directly
quoted from Microsoft website
(http://www.microsoft.com/servers/hyper-v-server/default.mspx):
===========Quote Start==============
Hyper-V Server 2008 only offers the most basic of virtualization
features, making it ideal for:
- Test and Development
- Basic Server Consolidation
- Branch Office Consolidation
- Hosted Desktop Virtualization (VDI)
============Quote End===============
That will definitely
deter most Enterprise Administrators from using MS Hyper-V Server
2008 in their primary production environment and force them to stuck
with the bulkier & less secure version Windows 2008 Hyper-V. Our
team believe MS should focus more on this lightened version to
better success in the Virtualization Market.
|
Required General usage Host OS
(if any) |
Infra v3:bare metal
No host OS required |
Windows 2008 Server Core |
ITComparison
Comments
-:
Microsoft Hyper-V VS VMware VI3:- |
Although MS
hyper-V Server 2008 suppose to be the lighter & most secure version
of MS Hyper-V offering, unfortunately its still has to implement a
Windows 2008 Server Core for it to run. The Windows 2008 Server Core
is installed while MS Hyper-V Server 2008 is installed. Though its
worthy to mention that Microsoft had hardened & reduced the size of
the Windows Server Core integrated into the Hyper-V Server 2008, but it
still a general use operating system & not even beating the version
of Redhat integrated in the full version of VMware ESX which VMware
taking out in their lightened version VMware ESXi.
In the
other hand, VMware ESXi has no operating system at all running
beside its hypervisor. They had even got rid of their Service
Console( A lightened & highly modified Redhat) which should be count
as a plus to VMware in this comparison.
Unfortunately Hyper-V Server 2008 still have a larger surface for
attack, viruses, & spyware to hit by keeping the Windows 2008 Server
core as a part of it. It would be a great enhancement if MS can
create a specialized Hyper-V Kernel than relaying on their Windows
Server Core to drive their virtualization Solution. |
Management tools |
VI Client
Virtual Center 2.5 |
Hyper-V Manager
SCVMM 2008 |
ITComparison
Comments |
Both Hyper-V
Server 2008 & VMware ESXi has a basic management tool coming with it
for free. VMware offer VI Client & Microsoft offering Hyper-V
Manager. VI Client has a nice advantage on Hyper-V Manager that you
can install it on several operating systems, where Hyper-V Manager
can only be install on Windows Vista SP1 or Windows 2008.
Both as well
offer an advanced management software which add advanced features to
its product. VMware offer Virtual Center, where Hyper-V offer SCVMM
2008. The main disadvantage of SCVMM 2008 for MS Hyper-V Server 2008
that it can't add the advanced features of the Windows 2008 Hyper-V
version (Quick Migration, MSCS, & more) to MS Hyper-V Server 2008.
In the other hand, VMware Virtual Center are able to provide VMware
ESXi with all the advanced features that the full version of VMware
ESX can provide, but license will be required for some of it. |
Support resources |
High |
Medium |
ITComparison
Comments |
Microsoft
might have more support resources than VMware,
but not when
it comes to virtualization, though they are investing into that
direction. |
Supported Guest OS |
- Microsoft WindowsNT4.0
/2000/2003/XP/Vista
- Red Hat Enterprise 2.1/3/4
/5
- Red Hat Linux Advanced Server 2.1
- Redhat Linux 7.2/7.3/8.0
/9.0
- SUSE Linux Enterprise Server
8/9/10
- SUSE Linux 8.2/9.0/9.1/9.2
/9.3
-FreeBSD
4.9/4.10/4.11
- NetWare
6.5/6.0/5.1
- Solaris 10 for
X86
- Vista
- Windows 2008
- Windows 2003
Standard /Enterprise SP1/SP2/R2
64-bit + Virtual
SMP (Supported
in Production)
|
- MS Windows
2003/2008 - MS Windows
2000 Server/Advanced Server SP4
- Windows XP SP2/SP3
-
SUSE Enterprise Linux Server
10 SP1/SP2 |
ITComparison
Comments |
Its obvious that VMware has production
support for many more OSs than Microsoft. Actually supported
guest operating systems in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 is very limited. In
addition, not all supported OSs on Hyper-V will run with optimal speed
on it. This is due to Hyper-V needs for the virtualized OS to understand
its running in a virtual environment to perform well on Hyper-V, which
is not even the case with windows 2003.
|
Linux Support |
Support most Linux version
available today. |
- Only SUSE Enterprise Linux
Server 10 SP1/SP2 is totally supported
- Xen supported versions of
Linux is planned to be supported. They should run by now, but with
modification and not supported. |
ITComparison
Comments |
Its obvious at the moment that Hyper-V
is still lagging on Linux support, where VMware support running most version
of Linux without the need to modify it, Hyper-V still only officially
support SUSE Enterprise Linux Server 10 SP1/SP2 at the moment. Other
Linux versions that have Paravirtualized Xen Kernal should run at the
moment, but still not officially supported. Even with the limited version
of Linux being supported by MS Hyper-V it still not that easy to setup. To
illustrate the required steps to setup Linux on Hyper-V read below:
Microsoft Hyper-V
provides Integration
Components for Linux OSes, It would
been acceptable if the Integration Component for Linux OSes were straight
forward to setup but it require many complicated steps and what worse you
have to do the same steps over and over again for every Linux virtual
machine including the
following:
1- Manual installation of Xen Kernel.
2- Excute a seperate script that modifies the Linux
bootloader
configuration to allow the use of
Microsoft Hypercall adapter.
3- Run a perl script to install the Integration
tools and paravirtualized drivers.
Note: If you want to see a full step by step of how
SUSE is install on Hyper-V look at
SUSE Installation on Hyper V at Virtualization Team Blog
Its clear that setting up Linux on VMware is way
easier and cleaner than Hyper-V at the moment, but Microsoft might change
that in future releases.
Further More, Hyper-V still does not support the 2nd generation of
Paravirtualization for Linux (paravirt_ops / VMI (Virtual Machine
Interface)). Method used to support Paravirtualization with Linux in
hyper-V increase the maintenance of Linux OS as the administrators will
have to keep up with two kind of kernels for virtualized & Physical
servers. In addition, they have to recompile their Linux kernel in order
for it to work. In the other hand, VMware are already offering support
for paravirt.
|
Performance |
- Higher
Performance
- More virtual
Machines per hardware as it support memory over commitment. |
- Perform well with Operating
systems that understand its running in a virtualization environment
currently Windows 2008 & SUSE
- Fewer Virtual Machines per hardware
- Domain 0 is a bulky windows 2008 & even the Server Core installation
can waste a good amount of resources.
|
ITComparison
Comments |
The performance advantage of VMware is related directly with its smaller foot print than Microsoft
Hyper-V Server 2008. VMware ESXi is totally using 32MB, where MS Hyper-V
Server 2008 is larger than 2GB. In addition, memory over-commitment
& Memory ballooning help VMware run more virtual machines without
sacrificing performance. |
64-bit Support |
Has full support for most of the 64-bit
Operating Systems. |
Support Windows 64-bit Operating Systems. |
ITComparison
Comments |
This is an obvious advantage of MS Windows
Hyper-v over MS Virtual server which did not support any 64-bit guest OS,
but still lag behind VMware on this one as well. |
Live Migration
(VMotion)
High Availability
(HA)
Dynamic Resources
(DRS)
Storage VMotion (SVMotion)
Cluster File System
Network Teaming |
Supported
Supported
Supported
Supported
VMFS
Yes |
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
N/A
Dependent on the network card
manufacture. |
ITComparison
Comments |
Although
Microsoft had tried to compete with some of these features in MS
Windows 2008 Hyper-V they dropped all of them in their slimmed
version MS Hyper-V Server 2008. To find out how MS Windows 2008 Hyper-V
compare to VMWare ESX offer check out our comparison for the
blown version of each product:
VMware ESX vs MS Windows 2008 Hyper-V. Though Below is a
quick overview of each of these features.
VMware VMotion:
VMware
VMotion is real Live migration for virtual Machines between hosts.
It give VMware users the ability to move their virtual machines from
one host to another host with zero downtime.
High
Availability:
Virtual
Machine on a failing VMware host will get restarted automatically on
another host.
DRS :
VMware will
re-distribute its virtual Machines between VMware host in away that
produce best performance for the VMs.
Storage
VMotion:
SVMotion is
a new feature of VMware VI3 where the entire disk files of a virtual
machine can be moved from one storage array to another without
affecting the operation of that Virtual Machine. This mean VMware
VI3 users can avoid downtime for their virtual machines when they
need to carry a storage maintenance. It means as well they can
easily upgrade or move to a new storage without the need for a down
time. This feature has no equivalent in MS Hyper-V at the moment,
which mean downtime for storage maintenance can't be avoided.
Cluster
File System:
VMware VMFS
is a cluster file system, which give vmware ESXi a great
flexibility & a key factor in most of the advance features VMware
offer. In the other hand, Hyper-V Server 2008 still use the same non
cluster File System Windows use NTFS which make it lag in
functionality behind VMware.
NIC
Teaming:
VMware
offers a network card independent NIC Teaming, where Hyper-V is
dependent on the network cards teaming driver & Software offered by
the network card vendor.
Please
note: some of these features will require a license to be used
with VMware ESXi. |
Virtual Machine support SCSI
disk Boot |
Yes |
No |
ITComparison
Comments |
MS Windows
Hyper-V still does not support booting virtual Machine from Virtual
SCSI disk. It only support it from Virtual IDE disk which will
highly slow the performance of these virtual machines. It is not
clear yet when Hyper-V will support booting virtual machines from
virtual SCSI disk as no announcement on that have been made. If MS
does not come up with boot from virtual SCSI then they are risking
their product of a very bad performance lag behind VMware which has
that capability. |
Online Backup |
VCB (VMware Consolidated
Backup) |
Live Backups with VSS |
ITComparison
Comments |
VMware VCB is
a great backup advantage as you can with it take live backup (image)
of running virtual machines without affecting the performance of the
host neither the virtual machines performance, where with MS Hyper-V
that still seems to depend on the host capabilities using the Volume
Shadow Copy Services (VSS) to enable you to take Live Backups of
running virtual machines in terms of snapshots, but still affect the
Hyper-V Host performance while the backup is running. |
Max virtual Machine Specs |
64GB of RAM
4 CPU |
64GB of RAM
4 CPU |
ITComparison
Comments |
Although
Microsoft has been good in keeping up with numbers for marketing,
still VMware can offer a better specs virtual machines for most
Operating systems beside windows 2008. At the moment, 4 virtual CPUs
are only recommended on Windows Server 2008 with Hyper-V. Its not
even recommended to use more than one virtual CPUs with Windows 2003
at the moment, but this hopefully would be resolved with future
releases. The following quote is directly from Microsoft Hyper-V
release note:
=====From MS Hyper-V RC release note Begin=====
Configure the
virtual machines as follows:
For the guest
operating system, install one of the following:
-
Windows Server 2008 RC1 with Hyper-V Beta,
with a maximum of 4 virtual processors. No other release of
Windows Server 2008 is supported with this release of Hyper-V.
-
The Windows Server 2003 operating system,
with a maximum of 1 virtual processor. You can install either a
32-bit version or an x64-based version."
=====From MS Hyper-V release note End=====
|
Special Hardware Requirement |
Require supported SCSI or SATA
controllers. A
supported Hardware List is provided. |
x64 based processor computer
hardware-assisted virtualization, and hardware data execution
protection (Intel
VT or AMD-V)
is a must. |
ITComparison
Comments |
It seems
Microsoft has forgotten again that many companies have some older
hardware that does not run 64-bit and would like to virtualize their
environment. MS Hyper-V force companies to obtain a newer more
expensive hardware to be able to virtualize. VMware in turn had
their own hardware supported list, but most server from well-known
manufactures in the market today are supported, and will support all
features offered by VMware like clustering which requires a special
support statement for Windows 2008 Hyper-V if used, but as mentioned
earlier MSCS is not even supported in Hyper-V Server 2008. |