| Battle of the hypervisors
heating up
2 January, 2008
By Paul Weinberg
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VMware's secure position as the dominant vendor in server
virtualization faces its first serious challenge.
Sometime in the first quarter of 2008, Microsoft will be
releasing its Hyper-V hypervisor for the software vendor's
Windows Server 2008 server operating system platform.
VMware will respond from the vantage point of eight years
of experience in virtualization and the "maturity"
of its hypervisor, stated Bogomil Balkansky, its senior
director, product marketing.
Making allusions to Microsoft's difficulties in the past
with other software products, the VMware spokesperson bluntly
asserted that "the burden of proof for stability [for
a hypervisor product] is higher than any other piece of
software."
The competition will possibly begin this spring when customers
will be presented for the first time with a choice of popular
servers from the likes of Hewlett-Packard and Dell embedded
with hypervisors from either VMware or Microsoft, stated
John Sloan, senior research analyst at Info-Tech Research
Group.
"The way I see it right now VMware is the leader and
they will probably be a leader a year from now, but certainly
it is going to be a much more competitive environment."
VMware, generating more than a billion dollars in software
revenues, has a significant market presence, especially
in the large enterprises with its hypervisor and virtualization
management tools, VMware Virtual Infrastructure
But by its own official estimation, VMware has about 25
to 30 per cent of the market of small and medium sized businesses.
Microsoft expects to make major inroads in SMB because
of the customers' comfort level with its already existing
Windows system management tools, which includes Virtual
Machine Manager, stated Bruce Cowper, Canadian security
lead at Microsoft Canada.
"Our biggest differentiator is that learning curve
for a lot of the IT professionals. A lot of our focus will
be on things like the management tool but also with familiarity
with the Microsoft platform."
Cowper defended the time lag between the introduction of
the Windows Server 2008 operating system in February and
the arrival months later from Microsoft -- the date of the
announcement not yet formally announced -- of Hyper-V. "Hyper-V
was developed by a separate team from Windows 2008."
Nevertheless, explained the Microsoft spokesperson, users
will still be able to leverage Hyper-V in its beta format
when Windows 2008 finally comes out, Cowper told eChannelLine.
"You can start your testing and your migration towards
the Hyper-V platform in Windows 2008 and the final bits
[Hyper-V] will be available shortly afterward."
Some industry analysts including John Sloan have predicted
that the hypervisor is slated to become a commodity as a
byproduct of greater competition among vendors.
But VMware's Balkansky countered that "we are very,
very far away from a state of the world where multiple hypervisors
coming from multiple vendors are indistinguishable in quality
and characteristics."
"I am pretty confident for the next years to come,
the hypervisor will continue to be a highly differentiated
piece of technology. Customers care tremendously, about
where they are getting their hypervisor. They care tremendously
about features, functionality, stability, maturity, performance."
He also denied that VMware will stick with large enterprises
and concede Microsoft's potential in SMB.
"Our goal is not to be a niche provider. I would not
by any means take it as a given that the market is going
to be sliced and large companies are VMware's market and
SMBs are Microsoft's market."
Small and medium sized businesses approach virtualizations
as part of a server refresh rather than as a separate purchase,
commented Sloan.
"That is an area where Microsoft has always played
well. And if users are looking at doing upgrading to Windows
2008 as well by the end of this year, they will need new
server hardware. Then they are going to pay for Hyper-V
as part of that package."
Yet, VMware has not been standing still even when there
was no serious competitor, Sloan added.
"To their credit they have not sat on their laurels.
They have continually been pushing new features like the
embedded hypervisor. They have been doing things to stay
on top."
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