In my testing Hyper-V, I see basically a copy of Xen or KVM. It is
hardware assisted virtualization where an AMD-V or Intel-VT CPU is
required. Unlike VMware ESX, there is no way to throttle the root
partition so a rogue process in the root partition can steal CPU cycles
and memory from running VMs. I was able to run a memory leak and CPU
burn-in utility that brought a Hyper-V host to its knees and all VMs
were suspended. That is not a good virtualization platform, at least not
yet.

Then there’s the memory problem. Hyper-V does not have the concept of
min/max settings with VM memory, only a maximum setting. That means that
if you have 10 VMs you want to install and you want each of them to have
1GB of RAM each, you need 10GB of RAM just for the VMs to power on.
That’s called over-committing memory in ESX and is a great concept and
allows less memory intensive VMs to “see” all the memory allocated to it
but it will have only x amount guaranteed. Hyper-V also does not have
the concept of memory page sharing, reducing the amount of actual RAM
VMs use, allowing for more VMs to be allocated and there is no balloon
driver that will also give more RAM back to the vmkernel for other,
higher priority VMs.

Then there is no DRS, where you have a farm of ESX hosts and VMs will be
automatically moved around live depending on settings the administrator
sets. There’s no Virtual Center, where you have a farm view of things. I
am able to routinely update or upgrade the ESX hosts with no down time
to the VMs. And that includes hardware as well.

The list goes on. Don’t forget about Patch Tuesday, where you host will
have to go down for a reboot and with no VMotion, that means your VMs
too.

No, Hyper-V is nothing more than Microsoft Hype and journalists and
Microsoft fans alike are treating it like it is the Next Big Thing. Xen
variants like Virtual Iron and Red Hat’s Xen offering are much better
choices for a comparison as those at least offer a version of live
migration and have been doing it for at least a couple of years.

I just wish I can read an article by a non-VMware site that explains all
these details and points out how different it is instead of being all
giddy about a beta product that is about 5 years behind everyone else.

Yes, I’m a VMware Certified Professional and a VMware Partner. But I’m
also a Microsoft Partner as well as a Citrix Partner so no matter which
way a customer wants to go, I can go there. But let’s be honest about
the offerings out there and make an apples-to-apples comparison.

-md

Andrew and I have spoke on this subject many times before…and his reaction now is the same it was when he heard the announcement at VMWorld on 9/11/07. Rereading his comments, I don’t think they reflect any bias against VMWare.

While we happen to disagree on this point, I think his expertise in virtualization is worth noting. Notice how he has reverse engineered the plugin APIs to VMWare’s management platform. My sense of that is, one doesn’t spend that much time and effort on a platform they don’t think is worthy of that time.

Placing ESX 3i in ROM not only reduces the attack surface it also holds the potential for diskless servers and boot from SAN (not to mention enables a faster boot, cheaper replacement costs, energy efficiency, etc).

But perhaps the biggest reason it’s a big deal is not technical at all. Embedding ESX 3i shows people a world where the HV is part of the platform, it’s the new BIOS. The HDD is where the applications live (as packaged VMs or virtual appliances). Then, the world shifts from buy operating systems pre-installed on servers to buying solutions as prepackaged VMs. Dell, HP, and IBM will shift from selling Windows/Linux pre-installed on the HD to selling application blades. The HV will be part of the system as much as tires are part of a car.

Sure, you can do these things with ESX 3 or 3.5 (except boot from SAN as easily), but it’s a different mindset.

And to be fair, HP isn’t the only IHV doing this.

Just like to point out that Andrew Kutz is actually <a href="http://SearchServerVirtualization.com" title="http://SearchServerVirtualization. " target="_blank">SearchServerVirtualization.com</a>’s VMware expert, and writes about 75% of our VMware content, including our most popular how-to guides.

I’ll alert him to this blog post and see if he’d like to comment, however.

Cheers,
Hannah Drake
Associate Editor, <a href="http://SearchVMware.com" title="http://SearchVMware.
" target="_blank">SearchVMware.com</a>

Surprise, surprise!

NOT!

BTW I have nothing to do with VMware other than I have used their products. Of course I have also use Microsoft products.