Ads by TechWords

See your link here
Receive the latest technology news and information.
Computerworld Daily News (First Look and Wrap-Up)
Computerworld Blogs Newsletter
The Weekly Top 10
Cloud Computing
View all newsletters




Privacy Policy
 

Opinion: Microsoft versus VMware: IT Loses

Enterprise IT will have to pick one of two incompatible methods of virtualiztion

May 5, 2008 12:00 PM ET

Active Comments
Billy Bathgates says: Your comment is equivalent to saying the metric system would not have been developed unless people hadn't used a flat-head...
Anonymous says: Virtualization is free and just works!...


Computerworld - As Microsoft readies Hyper-V, the new hypervisor software that forms the foundation for virtualization in Windows Server 2008, VMware is finally facing some real competition in the Windows server virtualization market. Unfortunately, Microsoft has followed in VMware's footsteps by creating its own, proprietary way of doing things, and VMware doesn't want to play along. The result: IT faces a choice between two virtualization options that are incompatible.

Virtualization services are built on top of a thin layer of code, called a hypervisor, that sits on top of the hardware and abstracts it away from the virtual Windows servers running above. The primary purpose of this program is the redirection of requests between multiple virtual machines and the underlying hardware so that each VM thinks that it is in charge. It is, in essence, basic plumbing.

The idea that the hypervisor would evolve to become a commoditized, standardized substrate, and that innovation would occur in the software layers above that, ain't happening. Instead, this contest is shaping up to be more about a clash of the titans, where two companies with near monopolies in their respective markets pit one proprietary design against another. You want in? Write to our APIs.

Microsoft, which owns the operating system, has already released a beta of Hyper-V and the final release is expected in the next few months. VMware, which dominates the Windows server virtualization market with its ESX offering, continues to hone its own tools within the VirtualCenter suite. Over the next year, users will have a choice between two virtualization management stacks that can't interoperate because each has innovated at the plumbing level.

And that's just fine by VMware. "We have never believed that the hypervisor would be commoditized. To imply that it's a commodity would imply that there's no differentiation," says Ben Matheson, director of marketing at VMware.

What VMware and Microsoft are battling over is a tiny bit of code (Hyper-V is just 800KB in size) that is sandwiched inside the industry-standard WinTel platform, between the x86-standard iron and the de facto standard Windows operating system.

Vendor efforts to continue to differentiate at the hypervisor layer are reminiscent of where networking was more than 30 years ago, when everyone thought they could do networking better. Gradually, the market came to accept the idea that by moving to a standard substrate (TCP/IP over Ethernet) and innovating higher up the software stack they could get a piece of a much bigger pie. With virtualization, vendors aren't yet ready to see the bigger picture. Today, it's still about speeds and feeds. (Says Matheson: "We can support more virtual machines than Microsoft's [hypervisor] can.")



Jump to comments

Microsoft

Additional Resources

Microsoft
Here are some of the key reasons why you would want to run Unified Access Gateway with DirectAccess.
Microsoft
Review how one energy firm tightened protection and simplified IT work using business-ready security solutions.
Sybase
In this white paper, IDC analyzes the role of next-generation mobile enterprise platforms as organizations seek a more strategic deployment of mobile solutions.

Learn the important issues you must consider before starting your next mobility initiative. Get your mobility white paper from IDC now, compliments of Sybase.

What People Are Saying

White Papers & Webcasts

The Business Case for Virtualization
Download this Resource Now!  

Effectively Implementing Datacenter Automation
Effectively select and deploy the best datacenter automation solution today!

Efficient Root-cause Analysis in the face of Datacenter Complexity
Isolating Virtualization and n-Tier Application Issues, Measuring Success, Assessing Business Impact, and Enabling Technologies

A Green Architectural Strategy That Puts IT in the Black
Levergage green computing across your data center. Read more now.  

XenApp Extends Virtualized Application Delivery
Download this webcast to learn how to accelerate delivery of virtualized applications and streamline management.


IT Jobs

 

Virtualization Everywhere
Virtualize your servers in less than ten minutes! Citrix XenServer is powerful server virtualization software that makes data centers more agile through improved server utilization, workload mobility, and enhanced disaster recovery. All the features you need - radically lower TCO.

Download this white paper 
XenServer FREE Trial
Citrix XenServer™ is the simplest and most effective way to virtualize and provision servers. XenServer combines comprehensive server virtualization capabilities with unparalleled scalability, performance, economics, and ease-of-use. Based on the open source Xen hypervisor, XenServer delivers fast performance, easy management, and advanced features such as live migration.

Download this free trial 
Business Value of Virtualized IT: Ensuring That Your Virtualized Servers and Storage Work in Harmony
The growing number of virtualized servers is affecting storage network environments, policies for provisioning capacity, and storage management and data protection practices. Storage assets allocated to virtualized servers can help deliver significant business value, but when deployed incorrectly can lead to "unintended consequences" that minimize the original business value of server virtualization. In this paper, IDC examines how implementing a virtualized networked storage environment ensures that organizations can maximize the benefits of server virtualization.

Download this white paper