VM /ETC

On the TechRepublic Servers and Storage Blog, Scott Lowe (not this Scott Lowe) posted his objective feature comparison table of VMware vSphere and Hyper-V on Server 2008 R2. Two things from Lowe’s Microsoft’s Hyper-V R2 vs. VMware’s vSphere: A feature comparison caught my eye and made it worth pointing out to VM /ETC readers:

1. Lowe currently runs ESX but, in his words: ” As Microsoft continues to improve Hyper-V R2, we will monitor its progress to determine if and when it might be able to replace VMware.”
2. Lowe actually compares the latest editions of both vSphere and Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V

Read the entire post for Lowe’s explanation of each feature row, but I am posting a screen shot of his table here.

TechRepublic vSphere and Hyper-V R2 Feature Comparison By Scott Lowe

I feel the table is important because it does a good job of displaying commonly examined hypervisor maximums, capabilities and short comings of the various editions, and a comparison of some of the popular host features. This is a good “from the trenches” administrator view, and not the typical marketing comparison.

I also feel this table (and any other hypervisor table comparison) lacks because the matrix can only be a small representation of the total implementation value / consideration / cost. Storage, networking, infrastructure requirements, complexity, third party support (back up and management products), and vendor support / community are all real world factors that make a difference in the total decision – in my opinion.

In the last row it appears Lowe is comparing just the cost of the hypervisors, and it should be argued that the cost of vCenter needs to be included based on the feature requirements (and the title row’s inclusion) of VMware’s management server. I guess this supports a comment about “VMware’s total cost becoming more of an issue” Lowe makes at the end of his post. Although VMware argues that price per application or VM density is the best way to evaluate the two solutions, this justification continues to fall short of many small to medium business’ only real measuring stick – the total price of the purchase order.

Unfortunately, Lowe’s end of  post comments hint that the “just good enough” hypervisor theory has some merit and is gaining some momentum in organizations like his own.

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