• VMware vSphere 5 delivered 18.9% higher aggregate performance than Hyper-V
• Performance among individual VMs was much more consistent with VMware than with Microsoft
• Overall VMware ESXi performance actually improved with higher density, while  Hyper-V declined with just 25% oversubscription

A chart tells the story very nicely:

Let’s take a closer look at these three victories.

Higher Performance

Using virtual machines running the latest Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 and SQL Server 2008 R2, VMware ESXi 5 churned out 18.9% more orders per minute with the DVD Store 2 benchmark, proving once again that superior vSphere technology enables more work to be done on less physical equipment.  Higher density virtualization translates into  fewer servers, network ports, power, space, cooling, and software licenses — reducing costs for your cloud infrastructure.

Fairer Resource Management

With the shift to cloud-based, multi-tenant computing environments, it’s more important than ever to be able to guarantee resources to infrastructure consumers.  The advanced resource management capabilities of VMware ESXi continue to shine — delivering 39.2% better standard deviation among virtual machines.  The erratic performance of Hyper-V workloads translates into an inconsistent experience and missed SLAs in densely-virtualized environments.

Better Scalability

Thanks in part to the full range of advanced memory management technologies in vSphere, VMware ESXi performance actually increased by 11.2% when more VMs were added to a host.  Hyper-V, with apparently sub-optimal scheduling capabilities — and lack of memory page sharing, compression, and hypervisor swap — did not fare as well; performance dropped by 3.3% in a very reasonable oversubscription scenario.

VMware vSphere: The best cloud infrastructure platform

While Microsoft claims that Dynamic Memory, introduced recently in Service Pack 1, has closed the gap between Hyper-V and vSphere, these independent test results tell a very different story.  Although that new feature does allow Hyper-V to power on more VMs than before, infrastructure architects will need to consider the performance impact on workloads in higher-density private clouds built from the unproven and less mature Windows-based hypervisor.

Please download the full report (or summary) and see why VMware vSphere is the best cloud infrastructure platform.

Related posts:

1. The Truth About Hyper-V Memory Overcommit
2. VMware vSphere 4.1 – the best virtualization platform yet
3. VMware vMotion: Over 5 Times Faster Than Hyper-V Live Migration
4. SearchServerMisinformation.com

Bradley Whitt – Gleacher & Company, Inc.

I was curious if you’ve seen, notice any reaction from your customers and prospects to the VMware pricing changes on VSphere? And curious whether you’re seeing more Xen downloads, that type of thing?

David Henshall

We have. We’ve seen an uptick in downloads as well as direct inquiries coming in based upon what they did with their licensing. And we’re not headlong into the server virtualization space. And obviously, we’re doing well with that platform across desktop and networking and now in the cloud platform. But it’s not a focused go-to-market for us. So I’d say probably Microsoft with Hyper-V and System Center has probably seen a much bigger uptick as a result. But we have seen greater interest in XenServer.

Admittedly, Citrix is in a tough spot — they have to choose the path of least resistance, which in their case means de-emphasizing and cutting products and solutions that compete with their biggest partner.  Given this revealing perspective and the open source community shifting to KVM, it’s hard to see a future for XenServer.

Transcript from Seeking Alpha.

Related posts:

1. vSphere Smokes Competitors in InfoWorld Shoot-Out
2. VMware vSphere 4.1 – the best virtualization platform yet
3. Hyper-V deployments suddenly drop to zero
4. Don’t Sysprep Me, Bro!

VMware vSphere still trounces the competition.  Paul Venezia, who drove this multi-vendor effort, considered many aspects of virtualization technology and concluded:

VMware still has advanced capabilities that the others lack. VMware also offers a level of consistency and polish that the other solutions don’t yet match. The rough edges and quirks in Citrix, Microsoft, and Red Hat aren’t showstoppers, but they demonstrate that these alternatives all have hidden costs to go along with their (potentially) lower price tags.

Here is the scorecard, summarizing the various categories tested:

Congratulations to the incredible team behind VMware vSphere – the original and still the best!

Related posts:

1. Disingenuous Cost Comparisons
2. What is Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization?
3. Multiple hypervisors? What about multiple SANs?
4. Citrix Not Focused on Server Virtualization?

Not to throw The Cloud under the bus, but somehow a glitch has allowed this Evernote note to circulate freely; it appears to be straight from Steve Ballmer’s MacBook Pro:

Your Turn!

What should Microsoft be looking for in the next STB leader?  Leave a comment below — funny or serious, your choice!

Disclaimer for the humor-impaired:  This is satire.  No, seriously.

Related posts:

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“That’s why I still maintain that at some point, you’ll be at 40 percent to 50 percent virtualized and you’re 50 percent physical, and that’s an important thing to recognize. If you recognize that, you can set the strategy. It’s not, ‘Oh God, we thought the world was going to be only virtual.’ That, fundamentally, is why I think VMware is in trouble,” he said.

In related news, Gartner recently predicted that 50% of all x86 server workloads will be virtualized by 2012.  Still no word on what happens in 2013, after global virtualization limits have been reached.  [Better start looking for some investors that can help me get VM cap-and-trade started.]

But seriously, many companies have already instituted “virtualization first” policies and deploying new apps on physical hardware requires sign-off from upper management.  If Bob Kelly is correct, half of all provisioning requests seek waivers from this policy?  Incomprehensible.

Bob Kelly also explained the true cause of server sprawl in that same article.  If you’re like me, you probably thought it was because of DLL Hell — complex product dependencies that made it extremely risky to manage multiple applications on a single Windows NT system — and SMP scalability problems.  Nope, it turns out that the real issue was the need for sufficient capacity to accommodate peak demand… wink, wink.

Which 50% will you virtualize?

Related posts:

1. VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself
2. Single Pane of Glass — Hyper-V Edition
3. Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager released
4. Storage VMotion Q&A

There seems to be a problem with this highly-inflated claim;  the casual observer may even infer that over a million system administrators have downloaded and installed Hyper-V in order to run virtual machines.

Let me assure you that this is impossible, and here is why:

• Windows Server 2008 shipped with the beta version of Hyper-V
• Hyper-V is just another component of Windows Server 2008
• Windows Update is used to automatically download updates for all Windows components
• In July 2008, the RTM version of Hyper-V was made available on Windows Update
• After installation, all Windows Server systems automatically download the Hyper-V update — whether they intend to ever run virtual machines or not
• Hyper-V download count++

What’s that?  Hyper-V downloads occur whether or not a system is even being used as a hypervisor?

Yes!  Update 950050 is automatically downloaded to all Windows Server 2008 hosts — the standard Windows Update process.  Actually, the Hyper-V update is even downloaded to virtualized Windows systems (which are certainly not even capable of running Hyper-V):

With that new understanding, you can decide for yourself whether or not it is honest to claim that there have been one million Hyper-V downloads, or if it is statistically significant to use that number to compute the reliability of Hyper-V (“.02%”).

Market Share

While we are on the topic, at the Microsoft Management Summit David Greshler also reminded us of the IDC Virtualization Tracker stats, crediting Microsoft with 23% of the market — which is by units, not revenue.  Please refer to the slide at the top of this post.

It’s interesting to see the label “Momentum” and the “now has” statement, both of which imply progress.

Last year IDC released market share numbers that caused quite a stir.  You can read all about it from a VMware perspective at Mike D’s blog, but to quickly summarize: IDC stated that in Q2 2008 Microsoft had 23% market share (when Hyper-V had been actually shipping for less than a week).  Here we are — quarters later — Microsoft has increased their share to… 23%.  That’s some momentum.

I find it ironic that the whole point of the Microsoft blog post referenced above is to provide “facts” and dispel alleged VMware FUD.  It’s safe to say that this battle is far from over.

Related posts:

1. Hyper-V deployments suddenly drop to zero
2. Humble… but dishonest
3. Hyper-V Market Share Lies
4. Have you seen “the IDC report”?

Operations Manager 2007′s value diminishes when managing non-Microsoft IT elements, whether management is provided by Microsoft or a third party.

Sort of reminds me of the value of SCVMM-VirtualCenter integration, but that’s another topic.

Something that really caught my eye is that the product has racked up 4000 licenses in the year-and-a-half that it has been available.  But, if you know the product architecture, you would concur that most sites require several licenses, whether you run a business website or www.foxybingo.com. That implies about 2000 SCOM 2007 sites, to make a reasonable estimate.

Is that a lot?  Perhaps, since Gartner found one strength to be “A significant installed base.”

Consider this:  To take advantage of the highly-advertised SCVMM features like PRO Tips, topology diagrams and reporting (well, in 60 days…) you need to integrate with SCOM.  Does that mean that there are just a couple thousand environments out there that are actually ready to deploy Microsoft virtualization?

Are you one of the two thousand?  What about everyone else?  Read up on SCOM architecture and deployment just to get started with virtualization?  Doubtful.  For those with real work to do, today, take a look at VMware Infrastructure with a free 60-day trial.  You can use VMware DRS right away to intelligently place virtual machines on hosts and even move them around with zero downtime.  Kind of like PRO Tips, without the quick migration downtime and all the moving parts of SCOM:

Root Management Server?  Clusters?  Report Server?  Management Servers?  DW DB?  Agents?  Please pass the Tylenol.

Related posts:

1. PRO Tips: pros only, please
2. Save $14,970 on VMware ESX management
3. SCVMM/PRO Complexity: High
4. Hyper-V Console Disconnects During Live Migration

Folks, this report has some big problems.  According to the IDC Fact Sheet, “IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Virtualization Tracker consists of independent, unbiased data, updated quarterly.”  I’m not sure where this allegedly independent, unbiased data came from, but hopefully next time it will actually be independent and unbiased.

Mike DiPetrillo has written up an excellent analysis of the report.  Check it out!

Related posts:

1. The Million Hypervisor March
2. Incoming Google Traffic: Introduction
3. VMware is Hiring – Join the Competitive Lab
4. VM Encapsulation