“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. Pimp My Hypervisor
2. VMware ESX 4 can even virtualize itself
3. VMotion from physical ESX 4 to virtual ESX 4
4. Dear Red Hat…

I first read of this particular issue on Network World today.  But unlike the official Microsoft Virtualization Team Blog, NW actually includes some details about this supposed ban — like this quote from an official VMware spokeswoman:

Yes, competing vendors are allowed to exhibit, including exhibiting competing products.

The VMworld contract was big news — back in May — but since then, like it or not, most competitors and industry watchers have conceded that the fine print in the VMworld contract is industry standard.  Just read the comments in that Virtualization.info article referenced by MSFT.

While it does make for pretty good drama, you should know that VMware has not banned Microsoft from exhibiting SCVMM 2008 R2.  I do admit, “Try the virtualization manager that VMware doesn’t want you to see!” does sound a lot more intriguing than “Here’s SCVMM R2, it does mostly the same stuff as the first release, and it can manage vSphere now — if you count VI3 feature parity.”

See you at VMworld.

Related posts:

1. Hello, SCVMM 2008 R2
2. How to get to VMworld 2009
3. Wild SCVMM 2008 R2 rumors and speculation
4. What’s New (and What’s Vapor) in SCVMM 2008

Last week Microsoft COO Kevin Turner made a shocking proclamation in this Dow Jones article:

“We launched our first product in October of this past year. from then till now, we gained 24 points of market share against a very, very formidable competitor,” Turner said.

There are at least two problems with Turner’s statement:

1. Hyper-V 1.0 was released in June 2008, not October
2. There is absolutely no data available to support the fictitious “24 point gain”

Microsoft is still scrambling for a convoluted explanation of this lie — I can’t wait to hear what they come up with.  Please note, however, that the part about VMware being a “very, very, formidable competitor” was independently verified to be true.

Virtualization.info just published a short article on the topic and mentions some previous market share numbers — helps put things in perspective.

Between the “million Hyper-V downloads” and this new fabricated market share statement coming from the highest levels of Microsoft, it raises the question:

What else is Microsoft Virtualization making up? Customer wins?  Price comparisons with VMware vSphere?

Smells like desperation to me.

Related posts:

1. The Million Hypervisor March
2. Which 50% will you virtualize?
3. VMware vSphere 4.1 – the best virtualization platform yet
4. IGT Part 2: SAN Misers

Today I’d like to point out an article from ZDNet that continues the tradition with the upcoming Quick Storage Migration feature in R2:

Unlike VMWare’s storage migration feature, Storage vMotion, Microsoft has chosen not to use a “Live” storage migration approach with their Quick Storage Migration, which suspends VM activity for several minutes while the VMs are being moved, after which the VMs are resumed from suspend. Microsoft insists that this is to ensure referential integrity of the data being moved, and that the majority of large enterprise customers which they worked with to integrate this feature did not do storage migration during production hours.

Unbelievable.  Interesting use of the word “chosen.”

I’ll be sure to link back to this blog post when Hyper-V 2013 comes out and Microsoft finally has Live Storage Migration.  Stay tuned!

But seriously — are you using Storage VMotion to move production virtual machines?

Related posts:

1. How to see if Quick Migration is right for your workload
2. Hyper-V More Stable, Just as Mature as VMware vSphere?
3. Exclusive: Hyper-V 2013 Product Roadmap
4. Hey boss, where do you want these virtual machines?

Over the past few months, VCritical has climbed in the Google search rankings for certain virtualization-related queries.  One especially notable search term is SCVMM, since there are quite a few articles written about that product on VCritical.  In fact, VCritical normally appears on the first page of Google search results for SCVMM — result number five at the moment.

Google’s search ranking algorithms are secret, but results are normally useful, accurate, and seemingly fair.

Today I thought I’d try the new Bing search engine and see if VCritical comes up on the first page of SCVMM results.  Uh, no –  half-way down page three — quite a discrepancy.

Does anyone know who is behind this new search engine?  If I didn’t know better, I would say it’s Microsoft — but they are already busy with that other search engine that refuses to take off.  But it looks an awful lot like Google’s interface.  Hmm.

How does that old saying go?  “Freedom of the press — to anyone that can afford to buy one.”  The same applies to Web search engines, evidently.

Related posts:

1. Incoming Google Traffic: Introduction
2. Best of 2009
3. First year of VCritical
4. Not another virtualization blog!

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”?

It makes me think of clean, but not clean as in save the earth with clean energy.  More like scrubbing shower tile clean…

Now that’s complete virtualization — from the desktop to the locker room.

Related posts:

1. Clean up vCenter with PowerShell after SCVMM leaves
2. VMware vSphere saves energy–and trees
3. Fishy Hostnames
4. IGT Part 6: Cluster invari-what ID?

Every so often, VMware hears from a customer that has just spoken to Microsoft Product Support and has been erroneously told that Microsoft software is not supported on VMware products.  That’s just about the last thing you — and your management — want to hear in the middle of a significant server virtualization project.

Fortunately, these problems usually go away as fast as they appear.  A quick visit to the Server Virtualization Validation Program (SVVP) website is enough to assure all parties involved that recent VMware ESX releases are absolutely a supported virtualization solution for your Microsoft workloads.

This confusion is often initiated by a Microsoft KB article that states, in part:

Except as described in this article, Microsoft does not test or support Microsoft software running together with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

At first glance, one may quickly draw the incorrect conclusion that VMware is not supported.  That’s unfortunate, and until more people — including everyone in Microsoft Product Support — know about the SVVP, this is likely to continue.

I was curious to know why Microsoft support would often not know about the SVVP and the official Microsoft stance on VMware ESX support, so I sent one of my spies to Redmond to dig a little deeper.  It turns out that the Hyper-V marketing team arranged for a special Outlook email filter to be added to every support mailbox:

So there you have it — if Microsoft would just get the word out about SVVP, it would go a long way in satisfying the Microsoft/VMware customers in need of support.

By the way, Ryan Russell recently wrote about an experience he had when trying to get Microsoft to support an application on ESX, you might want to check it out.

Related posts:

1. vCenter for Linux article disappointing
2. Even GPL can’t make Hyper-V Linux VMs well
3. Yes, NIC teaming is not unsupported
4. Linux apps run directly on Windows with virtualization!

Lo and behold, “Fred” responded with this comment:

I am using SCVMM to manage ESX. It is actually cool to see both environments in a single console. Plus, since I will never be 100% virtualized (or at least in the next 3 years), I like Microsoft’s management story. The ability to manage both phyiscal and virtual workloads using Operations Manager is very nice and my management loves it.

Wow, Fred really has it made — he is using a single console to manage his physical and virtual workloads.  Awesome!

But we have a small problem — “Fred” is not an actual customer.  Fred is Microsoft. This comment came from a Microsoft-owned IP address:

Ouch!  Fred, you really took one for the team this week.

Related posts:

1. Deceptive Microsoft SCVMM Advertising
2. SCVMM Damage Control
3. Single Pane of Glass — Hyper-V Edition
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From my perspective, Red Hat got exclusive rights to the downside of this deal while Microsoft benefits from media blitz and the increasing perception that they are becoming a cross-platform player.  Single pane of glass, and all that.

In order to see what Red Hat stands to gain from the Hyper-V deal, we can simply take a look at SUSE — the current “supported” Linux distribution on Hyper-V.  Critical aspects of supporting a guest OS are: integration components, customization, and P2V compatibility.  Here is where SUSE Linux Enterprise stands today:

Hyper-V Linux Integration Components

To get the most out of a virtual machine, administrators typically install an agent inside each guest operating system.  By the way, Microsoft has at least four terms for these: virtual machine additions, virtual guest services, integration components, and integration services.  VMware calls them Tools.

Part of supporting SUSE Linux Enterprise is providing applicable integration components (ICs).  Hyper-V, which shipped on June 26, 2008, did not include Linux ICs.  Where can users get them?  According to the Hyper-V FAQ:

Q. Will Microsoft continue to support Linux operating systems with Hyper-V?

A. Yes, Microsoft will provide integration components and technical support for customers running select Linux distributions as guest operating systems within Hyper-V. Beta Linux integration components are now available for SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 and SP1 x86 and x64 Editions. These integration components enable Xen-enabled Linux to take advantage of the VSP/VSC architecture and provide improved performance. Beta Linux Integration components are available for immediate download through http://connect.microsoft.com.

Well, guess what happens if you go to that Microsoft Connect site and search for Linux ICs?  Click on the first search result and you will get a “404″ page not found error — they have been recently removed.  Look a little further and you will find a bug report from an unhappy user that can’t find the SUSE Linux ICs — and several confirmations from other unhappy users.

UPDATE: James O’Neill sent me a tweet to let me know that I was not using Connect properly (and neither were those poor folks referenced in the above paragraph, hopefully someone will reach out to them soon).  You need to go to the Directory and look for the integration components section.  If you just search for them (like I did), they will show up in the results but not be available.  So the ICs are NOT MISSING.

I can offer three possible explanations for the missing Linux ICs:

1. They were pulled in order to resolve Open Source licensing issues.  This happened once already in July, so it is not unreasonable.
   
2. The production-quality version is finally ready for download from the main Microsoft Download Center, so the beta bits have been removed from Connect.
3. Linux support in Hyper-V is a very low priority.

A quick search of the Microsoft Download Center reveals the following, currently ruling out possibility #2:

That leaves options 1 and 3.  Select all that apply.

UPDATE:  The ICs were not pulled — they are available for download from the Connect beta site.  Supported by “newsgroup only” (code for “no support”) and lacking mouse, heartbeat, OS shutdown, and time sync functionality.

Do you really need the integration components?  That depends.  Do you want the maximum performance from your guest OS?  Do you want to use a mouse over a remote connection?

Frankly, I’m not even sure the mouse will work if you did find and install the Linux ICs — at least based on some quick observations. UPDATE: Confirmed.

Linux Guest Customization

The price of admission for virtual machine management is the ability to create templates in order to deploy customized instances of a master VM.  I wrote about this recently when I found that SUSE Enterprise Linux is not customizable by SCVMM.  I bet Red Hat hopes they get better treatment in this area.

Linux Physical to Virtual (P2V)

Finally, the old virtualization standby: consolidation.  Do you want to automatically convert your old physical Linux servers to virtual machines?  Don’t expect Hyper-V or SCVMM to come to your rescue here.  Nope, P2V in Microsoft parlance is strictly Windows-only.  If you need to convert Linux, look no further than VMware Converter 4.

Conclusion

It is not clear if Red Hat will get better support than SUSE on Hyper-V.  But that is not something you need to worry about — you can run your Red Hat Enterprise Linux workloads on VMware ESX today, not after some vague future milestone.  You also get full support for guest customization, P2V, and if you happen to need it — a mouse!

Related posts:

1. Hyper-V Linux integration components no longer Connected
2. Of Mice and Xen
3. Even GPL can’t make Hyper-V Linux VMs well
4. Which guest operating systems can be customized by SCVMM?