NEW Enterprise Hypervisor comparison

Two weeks ago VMware released the new version of their vSphere hypervisor, so it’s time to update our Enterprise Hypervisor comparison. It very impressive to see how quick VMware has reacted to the Hyper-V 3 announcements and has taken most of the wind out of the Microsoft sails.

I hope you find the new Enterprise Hypervisor comparison useful and feel free to contact us when you have feedback for us to improve the list.
The information on Microsoft Server 2012 Hyper-V features is very inconsistent, many different values out there.

In this version I added 10 new criteria. Many of these criteria should, in my opinion, be available in hypervisors suitable for enterprise environments.

You can find the new and improved Enterprise Hypervisor comparison here.

Last update Oct 1st: Changed Windows Server 2012 features (v4.2).

Tags: Citrix, Hyper-V, Microsoft, VMware, vSphere, XenServer

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 25th, 2012 at 21:31 and is filed under Citrix, Hyper-V, Microsoft, Must read, VMware, vSphere, XenServer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

About Erik Scholten

Erik Scholten is the founder of VMGuru.nl and works for Imtech ICT as a Solution Architect creating the most ingenious virtual infrastructures. He has over 15 years experience as a system engineer and consultant and now he specializes in virtualization. His current job includes selling, presenting, designing and developing virtual infrastructures for some major companies in the Netherlands. In 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 VMware awarded him the vExpert award for his virtualization community efforts.

Matt

“Recently I got a lot of requests to include the Hyper-V 3 features but I decided not to because I want to keep this hypervisor comparison real and fair. I based it on the latest two versions of the three major hypervisors which are generally available on the market at the time of publication”
Your document is dated 25th September…and you’ve included vSphere 5.1, which was available to customers on the 11th September, yet you’ve not included Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V, which RTM’d on 1st August, and was available for customers on the 4th September…?
“It makes no sense to compare real world features with announced-uncertain-unavailable features”

Which ones are these exactly?
- http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
  
  I missed the MS Server 2012 launch, I expected them to give a big release party but they must have released it quietly. But I fixed this already, MS Server 2012 is now part of the comparison. Quick VMGuru-like service Check the new 4.1 version.
- http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
  
  Those features which require SCCM 2012 SP1, which is needed to manage Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V hosts. Due to Microsoft’s strange release schedule you can now install Windows Server 2012 server but you can’t manage them yet. It is not supported to use SCCM 2012 (non SP1). Due to the rumor on twitter and in my mailbox I added MS Windows Server 2012 to the comparison but with a side note regarding the availability of SCCM 2012 SP1 (expected release end Q4 2012 or Q1 2013)
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Marius

Great comparison! Been looking for somethng like this for a while, but under the cloud bit. Microsoft has SCVMM and WS2012 has Network I/O controll
Stu Fox

Network IO Control is in Windows Server 2012 (called bandwidth management). Long distance live migration has been possible with Hyper-V for a long time (longer than VMware in fact). A similar thing to the distributed switch is coming in SCVMM 2012 SP1 (distributed switch is essentially a management construct after all). Your scale limits around Linux on hyper-V are also wrong, you can support at least 32 VP’s with the latest integration components (or maybe 64, i can’t remember which).

What is cloud integration?
- http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
  
  As I said in the article, I had to add MS Server 2012 in a hurry having missed the launch (as most people did I heard). And the information on the hypervisor features and numbers are very inconsistent. In some cases the mentioned values differed 400%. So it’s pretty accurate but in some areas it needs some work.
  
  If you have improvements, please mention it in the comments or write me an e-mail specifying which value needs to be altered and some proof of you statement, a MS website, video, etc.
  - Stu Fox
    
    Reposting this reply, since Disqus seems to have eaten my other one.
    
    1. Bandwidth management is via QoS (part of the Windows Server 2012 platform, but explicitly exposed in the Hyper-V UI): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831511.aspx
    2. VMM 2012 supports OVF import/export: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=29309
    3. Maximum Storage IO is > 1,000,000 IOPS http://blogs.technet.com/b/schadinio/archive/2012/07/07/over-1-million-iops-from-a-single-vm.aspx
    4. DR/Site Recovery can be via MSCS as you mention, but can also be via Hyper-V Replica (built-in to the platform): http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831716.aspx. I suspect there is more to come on this front with VMM 2012 SP1.
    5. Cloud extension & cloud integration is via System Center 2012 (SPF in SP1 provides the API).
    6. Distributed switch is also coming in System Center 2012 SP1 (it’s a management construct in VMM)
    7. The latest Linux Integration Services for Hyper-V (3.4, available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=34603 ) have this in the release notes:
    “Supported Linux distributions can use multiple virtual processors per virtual machine. The actual number of virtual processors that can be allocated to a virtual machine is only limited by the underlying hypervisor”.
    The underlying hypervisor in the Windows Server 2012 case supports 64 virtual processors per VM, so Linux support is 64 VP’s.
    - http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
      
      Stu, thanks you for the extensive message. I processed your feedback in a new version of the comparison, v4.2. Kudos
      - Stu Fox
        
        Couple of minor points on the update:
        1. Thin provisioning does not require System Center
        2. Third party distributed switch does not require System Center – it can certainly use it, but it does not require it.
        3. FreeBSD 8.2 is supported on Hyper-V http://blogs.technet.com/b/openness/archive/2012/08/09/available-today-freebsd-support-for-windows-server-hyper-v.aspx
        
        Cheers
        
        Stu
gsa-toolbox

Hi there, thanks for the interesting and up-to-date comparison.
Do you have any plans to include RHEV (KVM) ?
- http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
  
  I’ve received a comparison with RHEV 3.1 from a reader but I’m still in doubt if I want to include it. When I include it I have to maintain it and this takes a lot of work. Besides that I’ve never encountered it in enterprise environments.
  - gsa-toolbox
    
    Dear Erik,
    If VMware ESXi has a dominant position today followed by Microsoft Hyper-V and XenServer (market share wise), you seem to under estimate the position of KVM in the server virtualization.
    Unless what you call “Enterprise environments” refers to “Desktop only virtualization”, I sense that RHEV is catching up XenServer, especially for server infrastructure virtualization.
    I’m pretty sure that any “VM guru” has seen this year’s Nexenta’s Hypervisor survey ( http://nexenta.com/corp/nexenta-hypervisor-survey ) and if those results have to be interpreted and used with caution (they certainly not reflect a total market share but more usage statistics for a certain population of users), they clearly show at least one thing: an increasing interest in Red Hat’s KVM based solution, becoming equal or greater to that of XenServer.
    I find this compelling enough to include RHEV in your comparison and hope to be able to convince you.
    - http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
      
      Good point, I will take it into consideration. Maybe I will swap XenServer for RHEV, I’ve not come across any XS implementations/customers in the last year.
      - gsa-toolbox
        
        Thank you very much Erik.
        I noted your proposal to swap XenServer and RHEV, I leave it up to you and fully understand the extra work it would be to add another hypervisor. However, I would recommend keeping XenServer when you add RHEV as it would permit to have a more complete vision of the available solutions (at least for now).
        Like I said, you might be dealing essentially with VDI oriented customers but stay open for server virtualization and note as well that SPICE is a very interesting option for VDI, especially for the indirect rendering/Acceleration to dramatically reduce the transport protocol bandwidth. A new section or line dedicated to VDI could be a great addition by the way…
      - http://www.vmguru.nl Erik Scholten
        
        I has been a while but I finally found some time to add RHEV.
        Check out the new comaprison here: http://www.vmguru.nl/wordpress/2012/12/enterprise-hypervisor-feature-comparison/