Microsoft Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere

One topic that gets discussed quite often is Microsoft Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere, and a quick Google search for comparisons will return at least several hundred thousand hits. There seems to be a large number of posts and articles trying to make a case that one is better than the other by listing and comparing features of the hypervisors themselves one by one. The purpose of this post is not to claim that one platform is better than the other. Is that the best way to really compare the different virtualization technologies as a whole, or should we take a step back and really look at differences in approach for the virtual infrastructure and/or virtual ecosystems?

Microsoft:

In my opinion, Microsoft is defining and building their virtualization infrastructure as an extension or expansion of their current ecosystem, with System Center at the center of their universe. If you look at the System Center 2012 product page on Microsoft’s website, System Center product details are broken down into two different areas:

1. Cloud and Datacenter Management
2. Client Management & Security

Is this really a big surprise? Absolutely not, since it clearly makes more sense to build on what you already have in place than to reinvent the wheel. The majority of virtual machines that are running on the Hyper-V platform are running Windows, and System Center already has a solid foundation of features and capabilities for managing Windows environments. These features include:

1. Application Delivery
2. Mobile Device Management
3. Virtual Desktop Management
4. Endpoint Protection
5. Compliance and Setting Management
6. Software Update Management
7. Power Management
8. Operating System Deployment
9. Client Health and Monitoring
10. Asset Intelligence
11. Inventory

VMware:

In my opinion, VMware is looking to create a completely isolated and separated ecosystem that consists of a collection of appliances with different capabilities working independently and making up the features within the infrastructure, including:

1. vSphere
2. vCloud Director
3. vCloud Connector
4. vCloud Network and Security
5. vCenter Site Recovery Manager
6. vCenter Operations Manager Suite
7. vFabric Application Director
8. vCloud Automation Center

Conclusions:

One of the main differences that I see in the two approaches is that Microsoft wants virtualization, cloud, and datacenter management to be an extension of the infrastructure, whereas VMware would like the vCloud Suite to be the complete infrastructure. This starts with VMware developing vCloud as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service to fulfill their promise of the software-defined datacenter.

These are two completely different approaches that seem to define which segment of the industry each company has their eyes on. Microsoft appears to be most interested in the small to midrange enterprises, and VMware seems to be focused on the larger enterprises. From my experience throughout my career, in smaller environments administrators are expected to play a greater role in maintaining a larger scope of different technologies in their environments, or in other words, to be “do it all admins”. The larger the organization, the more compartmentalized the staff and technologies become, relying on Subject Matter Experts (SME) for all the various technologies, including Networks, Database, AS400, Midrange, Messaging and so on. With Microsoft focusing on extending its infrastructure, it appears to be catering more to the smaller and less compartmentalized organizations. I do not mean for this statement to be taken as a rule, for both Microsoft and VMware have been working hard to make sure their products are able to support and to scale for both smaller and larger organizations, and I am sure there will be plenty of smaller organizations that will be running vSphere, as well as larger companies and hosting providers that will be running Hyper-V, as well as others.

Throughout the years, I have seen plenty of heterogeneous environments with a collection of Linux, UNIX, Windows, and AS400 technologies, and I do not see that changing with virtualization. In fact, I picture a future with multiple hypervisors working together in harmony within clouds. More and more products are being developed to be able to support multiple hypervisors, and I believe this trend will continue and become more prevalent in the near future. I do not think the hypervisor should define the cloud, but rather the hypervisors should enhance the cloud itself.

Picture having the ability to move virtual machines and applications from hypervisor to hypervisor from a central location without ever skipping a beat. The pieces of technology that would be needed are, for the most part, in place, and we are just missing the integration engine to communicate effectively with the different platforms. Both Microsoft and VMware have great tools in place to migrate virtual machines into the respective platforms. We are just missing the ability to manage and create a workflow to migrate at will between platforms using the tools that are already in place. I do not foresee Microsoft or VMware adding this capability into their respective technologies; I would really expect something like this to come from a 3^rd party, but I am very much looking forward to the time when it comes.

Software servers, software networks, and software storage all move us along the track to a completely virtual datacenter and as asked early on, how many datacenters do you know that are not heterogeneous in one way or another? This will be the way of the future.