VMware Vsphere v Microsoft HyperV

I believe the first rule of drawing comparisons is to compare apples with apples. As I mentioned in an earlier blog Vsphere is a group of products, Hyper-V is a capability of one product – namely Windows 2008.

So let’s start with VMware ESX v Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

I see a lot of HyperVisor experts jumping to conclude that VMware is more capable than Hyper-V. However I feel it’s important to take an Enterprise view to gain a clear comparison. I try to turn capabilities into cost to level the playing field.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 is completely free, it has the same features as Widows Server 2008 R2 including Live Migration and HA, but doesn’t include any licensing rights.   For the best method is to license Windows Server on a virtualized platform regardless of the hypervisor, start here

So how about TCO?

How many organisations will not be deploying Windows 2008? I realise that most large corporate have already absorbed VMware but there is not such a learning/adoption curve for Hyper-V as most companies will be managing Windows 2008 in any case. There is a TCO calculator here

So now back to the stack; Vsphere v Hyper-V

Hyper-V gets its stack support from some of Microsoft old favourites now branded under the System Centre umbrella, namely System Centre Operations Manager (MOM in old money) for Monitoring, System Centre Configurations Manager (formerly SMS) for configuration. In a reasonably sized Microsoft estate these are probably already in play which again is favourable on the TCO. System Centre Virtual Machine Manager is a capability that is needed to try and match with the abilities of VMware Virtual Centre. System Centre Virtual Machine Manager can also manage VMware virtual center allowing both virtual estates to be centrally managed.

I feel there are still capabilities in favour of the VMware camp but given the relatively small barriers to introducing Hyper-V I expect Microsoft will start to claim a good chunk of the Virtual Estate. Possibly leaving only these machines that really need the extra features that VMware provide.