VMware vs. Microsoft: The pinnacle of server virtualization

VMware has long dominated the server virtualization technology market, and VMware still looks the leader. But as Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3.0 just surfaced, everything changed.

VMware and Microsoft are increasingly seeing each other as adversaries, and that only means one thing-the two companies see each other as a real threat when it comes to competition in server virtualization and private cloud computing markets.

VMware has long been dominant in the server virtualization technology market, and VMware still seems to be the leader even though the second generation of Microsoft Hyper-V management programs has significantly increased than in the first generation. While the company has been continuously attacked by Microsoft, including Microsoft's attempt to ridicule "VM 2¥q" with its tad talks video, VMware has not been affected by all these events and has not responded to the incident.

But as Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3.0 just surfaced, everything changed. At Microsoft's technology conference in San Francisco this week, Jeff Woolsey, head of the company's server virtualization, declared that new hyper-V would be daunting.

"VMware's people claim to use Windows Server 2012, they can deliver up to 300,000 IOPS on a single virtual machine, we can achieve 985,000 IOPS on a single virtual machine, three times times more than they do (IOPS is data supplied by VMware "We can do it higher, but it's as fast as hardware," Woolsey said.

Sooner or later, VMware will not sit back and start fighting against Microsoft (as Microsoft does in that area and will not ignore Apple and start fighting back). This is because VMware's platform is often considered much more expensive than the Microsoft platform, and once Hyper-V 3 is available, there is no reason to use VMware's products.

But is it really much more expensive to build a virtualized infrastructure using the vsphere management program than using Hyper-V? This is certainly the topic that Microsoft likes to promote.

To counter this argument, VMware has commissioned a company called Principled technologies (yes, we've never heard of the company) to produce a total cost report that compares vsphere to Hyper-V. "We are purely in response to Microsoft's claim that Hyper-V is much cheaper than vsphere," said Eric Horschman, VMware Marketing Director.

Research shows that when you add server and facility costs, the cost of vsphere infrastructure is roughly the same as Hyper-V, and the cost of vsphere infrastructure is lower when you perform five typical data center tasks.

"Microsoft looks at software acquisition costs, but they should consider total construction costs," Hoschman said. With VMware, "We use fewer servers, less data center space, less power and heat, and so on." "The reason for this is partly because you can place more VMware virtual machines on a physical host than Hyper-V," he explains.

The report concludes that when you take all of these into account in a data center of 1000 virtual machines, the operating cost of VMware is 91% of Microsoft's.

The problem with this report, of course, is that it is in detail. The choice of five "typical" data center tasks is critical, as is the choice of 1000 virtual machine data centers, not the data centers for example 2000 or 300 virtual machines.

This means that reports like this do not convince anyone that vsphere is really cheaper than hyper-V-by using the appropriate parameters and assumptions of use, such reports can draw any desired conclusions.

In fact, a recent Microsoft study shows that over a 1-3-year period, the cost of a VMware private cloud solution on Vsphere 5 is eight to 16 times times that of Microsoft's private cloud solution on Hyper-V. But this is based on 42 mainframe research--why 42? --2 CPUs per host. Oh yes, the report doesn't include hardware, storage, and it costs.

The role of VMware reporting is to create uncertainty, and its ultimate purpose is this. VMware wants to make it impossible for prospects to determine whether their solution is more expensive than Microsoft's, and Microsoft wants to make it impossible for potential customers to determine whether their platform is technologically behind VMware.

The most important thing here is that VMware is clearly thinking that Microsoft is now a very credible player in the domain of server virtualization and cloud computing ――vmware has to contend with Hyper-V because Microsoft's hypervisor is no longer easily underestimated.