Hyper-V

May 9, 2012 | 5 comments

In what can only be regarded as a breakthrough in hypervisor performance technology, it is now possible to run tier-1 applications on minimal resources and without regard for high-availability of any kind!

April 27, 2012 | No comments

The "hosted private clouds" on display at MMS 2012 were based on shared infrastructure, making them public clouds in reality.

April 24, 2012 | No comments

Microsoft tipped their hand by announcing a plethora of beta products in 2011, left with little to announce this year at Microsoft Management Summit 2012.

April 17, 2012 | 4 comments

How is a tricked-out bicycle like a System Center 2012 private cloud?

October 19, 2011 | 6 comments

Side-by-side tests show that VMware vMotion is over 5 times faster than Hyper-V Live Migration. Plus, vMotion is more reliable and protects application SLAs much better than Hyper-V.

August 26, 2011 | 31 comments

Independent tests show VMware vSphere 5 outperforms Hyper-V R2 SP1 in overall performance, resource management, and scalability.

August 18, 2011 | 5 comments

Citrix CFO downplays XenServer during Q2 2011 earnings call, shifting focus to Microsoft Hyper-V.

August 11, 2011 | 7 comments

In a recent blog post filled with FUD and misinformation, the Microsoft virtualization team makes a surprising commitment to maintain Windows pricing.

August 9, 2011 | 1 comment

VMware vSphere 5 adds the ability to perform a scripted installation of VMware ESXi 5 to a USB flash drive or SD card. Hyper-V? Not so much.

June 16, 2011 | 5 comments

A recent article on a popular technology media outlet includes misinformed claims about Hyper-V Dynamic Memory advantages over VMware vSphere.

June 9, 2011 | 10 comments

Learn Microsoft's trick behind the claim that VMware vSphere costs as much as five times more than Hyper-V.

May 26, 2011 | 4 comments

Network teaming provides load balancing and fault tolerance to your virtual infrastructure. VMware vSphere provides powerful, elegant solutions to meet the most demanding requirements. The Hyper-V platform continues to rely on unsupported legacy technologies.

May 24, 2011 | 6 comments

Some newcomers to virtualization don't know that VMware vSphere is the combination of VMware ESXi and vCenter Server. By launching a complete virtualization infrastructure platform, VMware can offer more advanced capabilities than the staggered Hyper-V releases from Microsoft.

April 13, 2011 | 12 comments

Latest InfoWorld comparison of all major virtualization platforms puts VMware vSphere on top!

April 1, 2011 | 29 comments

At MMS 2011, Microsoft presented a fake demonstration of Hyper-V Dynamic Memory in a breakout session. But why?

March 11, 2011 | No comments

VMware vSphere Resource Pools are a proven means to reliably share infrastructure. Hyper-V requires administrators to manage CPU reservations and limits on an individual VM basis.

December 20, 2010 | 13 comments

Hyper-V Dynamic Memory is coming in SP1, but workarounds may be needed to install applications.

November 8, 2010 | 4 comments

The new Microsoft private cloud "Virtual Machine Manager Self Server Portal 2" takes a major step backward, reverting to the "one VM per LUN" limitation when scripting LUN creation.

October 27, 2010 | 5 comments

Director of Microsoft Virtualization says vSphere hybrid clouds remind him of ancient fax machines, overlooking reality of current IaaS landscape.

October 21, 2010 | 2 comments

Microsoft claims that Linux guests running on Hyper-V are fully supported -- find out what really happens when a customer tries to get help with a SLES VM.

October 19, 2010 | 17 comments

Gartner says Hyper-V not meeting expectations even in midmarket, VMware doing pretty well.

August 30, 2010 | 7 comments

A new feature in vSphere 4.1 allows administrators to easily perform a cold conversion (V2V) of a Hyper-V virtual machine.

August 11, 2010 | 9 comments

Roundup of recent VMware vSphere 4.1 reviews and competitive evaluation resources.

March 31, 2010 | 4 comments

A year ago at MMS 2009, Microsoft criticized VMware for not offering public-private cloud federation. Today, Microsoft still has nothing to show in that area.

March 12, 2010 | 49 comments

The majority of Windows crashes are caused by third-party device drivers. See how Hyper-V reliability is compromised due to its dependence on a general-purpose OS.

March 1, 2010 | 4 comments

Yo Dawg! I heard you like to virtualize, but there is no truth to the rumor that Xzibit influenced the Hyper-V design.

February 17, 2010 | 20 comments

Microsoft has broken through numerous technological barriers, enabling Windows/Hyper-V to directly execute Linux applications.

February 10, 2010 | 8 comments

Humorous take on a reference to small footprint hypervisor advantages -- not from VMware.

February 1, 2010 | 16 comments

With Hyper-V R2 out the door, leaked screenshots from a post-RTM build of Windows Server 2008 R2 suggest a Dynamic Memory feature is coming in a successor.

January 21, 2010 | 30 comments

Microsoft Virtualization publishes an embarrassing guest post refuting vSphere advantages, doing more harm than good.

January 13, 2010 | 36 comments

Learn about Microsoft's attempt to implement memory overcommit in Hyper-V.

December 17, 2009 | 3 comments

In an InformationWeek article, Elias Khnaser does an excellent job of articulating several of the key advantages that VMware vSphere has over Hyper-V -- memory overcommit, hypervisor footprint, maturity, and more.

December 3, 2009 | 14 comments

While Microsoft marketing material claims Hyper-V and SCVMM can transfer large virtual machine files and templates over a SAN, the truth is that all VM transfers are done over the network. Only VMware ESX leverages high-speed storage area networking for VM migration.

November 18, 2009 | 12 comments

VMware vSphere 4 offers multiple options for expanding virtual machine storage with zero downtime, including the ability to grow a running virtual disk. Hyper-V marketing literature makes a similar claim, but is limited to simply adding another virtual disk.

November 10, 2009 | 19 comments

According to Microsoft's own documentation, integrating SCOM with SCVMM adds high complexity and additional cost to your virtualization environment.

November 3, 2009 | 40 comments

Microsoft stretches the truth when claiming that VMware adds an additional layer to your architecture. The fact is, Hyper-V relies on its own instance of Windows and requires more instances for running apps.

October 15, 2009 | 5 comments

When a Hyper-V virtual machine console is connected and a live migration is initiated -- automatically with PRO Tips or manually -- the remote client disconnects. The situation must be resolved manually by the administrator, unlike VMware ESX, which seamlessly migrates remote console connections during VMotion.

October 12, 2009 | 11 comments

Hyper-V CSV LUNs have no human-friendly labels, making it difficult for administrators to easily identify volumes. Instead, cryptic GUIDs are shown when monitoring from System Center Operations Manager 2007.

September 18, 2009 | 106 comments

In Windows Server 2008 R2, Cluster Shared Volumes enable multiple hosts to access a single shared LUN. However, administrators may not manipulate or back up VM files on a CSV.

August 19, 2009 | 10 comments

If your server OEM supports it, you might be able to get the free Hyper-V Server R2 to boot from a flash drive someday. VMware ESXi supports this feature today.

August 10, 2009 | 20 comments

Do not believe the hype from Microsoft execs about System Center single pane of glass management. The loosely integrated tools require administrators to use numerous interfaces.

July 24, 2009 | 5 comments

Windows Server 2008 automatically downloads the non-beta Hyper-V patch after installation. If Microsoft is using this metric for Hyper-V deployments, they are not being honest.

July 21, 2009 | 4 comments

Even with the recent move of offering open source (GPL2) Linux integration components (drivers), Linux guests fall quite short of being first-class virtual citizens on Hyper-V.

June 18, 2009 | 3 comments

Microsoft Virtualization was counting Hyper-V downloads -- requried for every Windows Server 2008 system -- and using that metric to imply Hyper-V adoption.

June 12, 2009 | 9 comments

It is very difficult to cleanly shut down a Linux VM on Hyper-V if it is configured for HA. This is because there is no orderly guest shutdown feature in the integration components.

May 27, 2009 | 5 comments

Now that Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V has released… What’s that? It has not yet released? Sorry about that, I was confused for a moment — all of the key features of Hyper-V that Microsoft Virtualization team has been talking about for months are actually in the R2 product, which is currently just at [...]

May 20, 2009 | 3 comments

Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt — FUD.  The expression may have started with the mainframe generation, but these days most technology pros associate the term with Microsoft tactics.  That’s why I find it more than a little humorous to see the Microsoft Virtualization Team using it on their blog right now in an attempt to defend Hyper-V’s [...]

May 13, 2009 | 6 comments

Hyper-V is often downloaded to Windows Server systems that will never be used to run virtual machines. Making this an irrelevant metric for Hyper-V installed base figures.

April 24, 2009 | 5 comments

One of the greatest things about virtual machines is the ability to take snapshots, which can be used to quickly roll a VM back to a known state. Previously, I have written about some of the shortcomings with Microsoft’s Hyper-V snapshots.  Or were they checkpoints?  I forget… but that’s not important.  The main problem with [...]

April 23, 2009 | 2 comments

I have given some coverage recently to Linux guest operating system support on Hyper-V, especially the incredible announcement last month of mouse support for Linux guests! Just when you thought it could not get any better, the Microsoft Virtualization gang surprised us again this month.  No, it’s still not orderly guest shutdown support, or OS [...]