My comments on Six Reasons Why Microsoft’s Hyper-V Will Overtake VMware to Become the Major Player in the x86 Server Virtualization Marketplace

Microsoft has released a new market analysis from Clabby Analytics on:

Six Reasons Why Microsoft’s Hyper-V Will Overtake VMware to Become the Major Player in the x86 Server Virtualization Marketplace

When I read through this Market Analysis I found some arguments that I wanted to comment on some of these six reasons.

The six reasons is:

1. Price
2. Packaging
3. Depth
4. Reach
5. Control/integration
6. Installed base

Regarding price. Clabby Analytics has layed out a comparison chart on pricing differences between Microsoft and VMware . I havent checked the pricing listed in the charts. What they forget in this picture is that the Consolidation ratio on VMware due to memory sharing would probably be alot higher than on Hyper-V. Thus require more Hyper-V hosts than ESX hosts to run the same amount of virtual machines. So when doing price comparison - I strongly suggest that you do this on a per virtual machine basis.

On packaging they argue that Hyper-V is an addon to any 64bit version of Windows Server 2008 operating system - this is a valid argument. They also state that installing Hyper-V is a breeze. Rigth, but first you need to install Windows Server 2008. How long does that take? VMware is delivering ESX 3i for free - and the major server vendors is adding this builtin to the physical servers and it takes seconds to enable the software and boot the server with ESX. No installation of an operating system is required. Its basically Plug´n´play.

On product depth, VMware is in the lead and will be for a while. Microsoft will over the next years come in closer but I agree on the management side Microsoft has a strong competition parameter. Many large organisation does already have some or all of the System Center products installed and licensed and this will be a clear advantage from Microsoft. VMware’s advantage in this section is that VirtualCenter is user-friendly and easy to use for the administrators, whereas the Microsoft System Center application suite is pretty complex to setup and maintain.

In the control/integration sections  clabby analytics claims that VMware is a Windows add-on? HUH? Is this article on VMware Server? or is it on VI3 products? ESX doesnt require a Microsoft OS to be installed prior to installing ESX. VirtualCenter run’s on top of an Microsoft operating system and thats whats basically is required to run a VMware Virtual Infrastructure environment today.

The article states some shortcomings of Hyper-V - which mostly refers to live migration (VMotion). But what other features does VMware ESX provide that uses VMotion. VMotion is the key enabler of alot of features from VMware:

1. Storage VMotion - moving LIVE guest VMs between different LUNs. This does make it alot easier to redesign the storage when scaling out or migrating to a new storage array.
2. VMware Update Manager - patching of ESX hosts without any downtime for the guest VMs? This cannot be done with Hyper-V yet.
3. DRS - automatically load balance between ESX servers in a VMware DRS Cluster.
4. DPM - automatically shutdown ESX servers hosts to save on power in periods of low usage.

Microsoft Hyper-V doesnt provide any of the above features without downtime for the guest VMs.

Furthermore VMware has as other key features as mentioned earlier Memory sharing, Memory overcommitment and Memory balloning - all techniques to save on memory usage within an ESX server host. This enables ESX to have alot higher consolidation ratio than Hyper-V. Hyper-V would in most circumstaces need more hosts to run the same amount of guest VMs that ESX. So Hyper-V would also be more expensive in cooling and power costs….

Finally I would like to mention an interesting product from VMware - called VMware Site Recovery Manager - providing features for disaster recovery between physical datacenters with the feature of testing a failover periodically.

Update: I just found an answer from VMware regarding the above market analysis, which can be read here

So what new commands is available in VMware RCLI?

VMware has updated the VMware Remote CLI with a new version on the same time they released Update 2 for VI3.5.

So what new commands has been added? Here’s a list:

• esxcfg-dns - Specifies an ESX Server host’s DNS configuration.
• esxcfg-module - Enables VMkernel options
• esxcfg-user - Creates, modifies, deletes, and lists local direct access users and groups of users
• vicfg-dns - Specifies an ESX Server host’s DNS configuration.
• vicfg-module - Enables VMkernel options
• vicfg-user - Creates, modifies, deletes, and lists local direct access users and groups of users
• vmware-cmd - Manages the virtual machines in your VMware Infrastructure environment

The vi- commands is for use with 3i and the esx- command is for use with 3.5 (and the service console)

For a complete new guide for VMware Remote CLI - check this out.

Also the new RCLI supports the use of SSPI for authentication. This feature allow us to use passthrough authentication when executing scripts.  For this too work - VirtualCenter needs to be updated with the Update 2 package.

VMware releases Update 2 for VI3

The following information provides highlights of some of the enhancements available in this release of VMware Infrastructure 3:

Note: Not all combinations of VirtualCenter and ESX Server versions are supported and not all of these highlighted features are available unless you are using VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 with ESX Server 3.5 Update 2. See the document ESX Server, VirtualCenter, and VMware Infrastructure Client Compatibility Matrixes for more information on compatibility.

Features

• Windows Server 2008 support – Windows Server 2008 (Standard, Enterprise, and Datacenter editions) is supported as a guest operating system. With VMware’s memory overcommit technology and the reliability of ESX, virtual machine density can be maximized with this new guest operating system to achieve the highest degree of ROI. Guest operating system customizations and Microsoft Cluster Server (MSCS) are not supported with Windows Server 2008.
• Enhanced VMotion Compatibility – Enhanced VMotion compatibility (EVC) simplifies VMotion compatibility issues across CPU generations by automatically configuring server CPUs with Intel FlexMigration or AMD-V Extended Migration technologies to be compatible with older servers. Once EVC is enabled for a cluster in the VirtualCenter inventory, all hosts in that cluster are configured to ensure CPU compatibility for VMotion. VirtualCenter will not permit the addition of hosts which cannot be automatically configured to be compatible with those already in the EVC cluster.
• Storage VMotion – Storage VMotion from a FC/iSCSI datastore to another FC/iSCSI datastore is supported. This support is extended on ESX/ESXi 3.5 Update 1 as well.
• VSS quiescing support – When creating quiesced snapshot of Windows Server 2003 guests, both filesystem and application quiescing are supported. With Windows Server 2008 guests, only filesystem quiescing is supported. For more information, see the Virtual Machine Backup Guide and the VMware Consolidated Backup 1.5 Release Notes.
• Hot Virtual Extend Support – The ability to extend a virtual disk while virtual machines are running is provided. Hot extend is supported for vmfs flat virtual disks without snapshots opened in persistent mode.
• 192 vCPUs per host – VMware now supports increasing the maximum number of vCPUs per host 192 given that the maximum number of Virtual Machines per host is 170 and that no more than 3 virtual floppy devices or virtual CDROM devices are configured on the host at any given time. This support is extended on ESX 3.5 Update 1 as well.

Hardware Enablement and Management:

• 8Gb Fiber Channel HBAs – Support is available for 8Gb fiber channel HBAs. See the I/O Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.5 and ESX Server 3i for details.
  SAS arrays – more configurations are supported. See the Storage/SAN Compatibility Guide for ESX Server 3.5 and ESX Server 3i for details.
• 10 GbE iSCSI initiator – iSCSI over a 10GbE interface is supported. This support is extended on ESX Server 3.5 Update 1, ESX Server version 3.5 Update 1 Embedded and ESX Server version 3.5 Update 1 Installable as well.
• 10 GbE NFS support – NFS over a 10GbE interface is supported.
• IBM System x3950 M2 – x3950 M2 in a 4-chassis configuration is supported, complete with hardware management capabilities through multi-node Intelligent Platform Management Interface (IPMI) driver and provider. Systems with up to 32 cores are fully supported. Systems with more than 32 cores are supported experimentally.
• IPMI OEM extension support – Execution of IPMI OEM extension commands is supported.
• System health monitoring through CIM providers - More Common Information Model (CIM) providers are added for enhanced hardware monitoring, including storage management providers provided by QLogic and Emulex. LSI MegaRAID providers are also included and are supported experimentally.
• CIM SMASH/Server Management API – The VMware CIM SMASH/Server Management API provides an interface for developers building CIM-compliant applications to monitor and manage the health of systems. CIM SMASH is now a fully supported interface on ESX Server 3.5 and VMware ESX Server 3i.
• Display of system health information – More system health information is displayed in VI Client for both ESX Server 3.5 and VMware ESX Server 3i.
• Remote CLI – Remote Command Line Interface (CLI) is now supported on ESX Server 3.5 as well as ESX Server 3i. See the Remote Command-Line Interface Installation and Reference Guide for more information.

Management Agents Support

• HP Management Agents – HP Insight Management Agents provide server management capabilities for ESX Server hosts installed on supported server platforms. A new version, 8.1, is now supported.

Guest Operating System Support

• Solaris10 U5 - Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported.
• SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP2 - Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported. The 32-bit version supports the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) and is hence performance-optimized for VMware environments.
• Ubuntu 8.04 - Both the 32-bit and 64-bit versions are supported. The 32-bit version supports the VMware Virtual Machine Interface (VMI) and is hence performance-optimized for VMware environments.

Service Console , driver and library updates

• Service Console Operating System Update - The ESX Server Console operating system has been updated to RHEL 3.0 U9. See the document Updated RPMs and Security Fixes for detailed information.
• Driver updates - The tg3 driver has been updated to version 3.81c. The megaraid_sas driver has been updated to version 00.00.03.19.
• Library update - StoreLib has been updated to version 2.51.

VMware High Availability (HA)

VirtualCenter 2.5 update 2 adds full support for monitoring individual virtual machine failures based on VMware tools heartbeats. This release also extends support for clusters containing mixed combinations of ESX and ESXi hosts, and minimizes previous configuration dependencies on DNS.

VirtualCenter Alarms

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 extends support for alarms on the overall health of the server by considering the health of each of the individual system components such as memory and power supplies. Alarms can now be configured to trigger when host health degrades.

Guided Consolidation Enhancements

Guided Consolidation now provides administrators with the ability to filter the list of discovered systems by computer name, IP address, domain name or analyzing status. Administrators can also choose to explicitly add physical hosts for analysis, without waiting for systems to be auto-discovered by the Consolidation wizard. Systems can be manually added for analysis by specifying either a hostname or IP address. Multiple hostnames or IP addresses, separated by comma or semi-colon delimiters, may also be specified for analysis. Systems can also be manually added for analysis by specifying an IP address range or by importing a file containing a list of hostnames or IP addresses that need to be analyzed for consolidation. Guided Consolidation also allows administrators to override the provided recommendations and manually invoke the conversion wizard.

Live Cloning of Virtual Machines

VirtualCenter 2.5 Update 2 provides the ability of creating a clone of a powered-on virtual machine without any downtime to the running virtual machine. Therefore, administrators are no longer required to power off a virtual machine in order to create a clone of it.

Windows Single Sign-on Support

You can now automatically authenticate to VirtualCenter using your current Windows domain login credentials on the local workstation, as long as the credentials are valid on the VirtualCenter server. This capability also supports logging in to Windows using Certificates and Smartcards. It can be used with the VI Client or the VI Remote CLI to ensure that scripts written using the VI Toolkits can take advantage of the Windows credentials of your current session to automatically connect to VirtualCenter.

Plug-in Updates

This release of the VMware Infrastructure 3 software suite also includes:

• An update to VMware Converter Enterprise.For more information, see the VMware Converter Enterprise Update 2 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.
• An update to VMware Update Manager. For more information, see the VMware Update Manager 1.0 Update 2 for VirtualCenter 2.5 Release Notes.

Download ESX Server 3.5 Update 2 here here

Download ESX Server 3i Installable Update 2 here here

Download VirtualCenter Update 2 here

Remember to also update VMware Consolidated Backup to version 1.5 which can be downloaded here here

Distinction between License Administrator (LA) and Support Administrator (SA)

VMware has this week released a kb article on what the distinctions between a License Administrator (LA) and Support Administrator (SA)

I personally knew about the License Administrator - but didnt knew about the Support administrator. The license administrator is often the person on which the licenses is ordered to…. this means to open a support case - you previously had to use that persons login account on the VMware website.

This kb article describes how to add Support Administrators to the contract.

Im now scheduled for the VMware Enterprise Exam - which is part of the VCDX Certification

VMware announced the new VCDX Certification this spring. The VCDX is an VMware Infrastructure 3 advanced certification developed for design architects of VMware enterprise deployments.

There are four core validation components to achieve VCDX.

1. Must be certified as a VMware Certified Professional (VCP) on VMware Infrastructure 3.
2. Pass the VMware Enterprise Administration Exam. Includes live labs and tests a higher level of skill set than the exam for VCP on VMware Infrastructure 3.
3. Pass the VMware Design Exam. This exam focuses on actual design scenarios and contains simulations and situational questions.
4. Submit, present and defend a successful VMware Infrastructure design and implementation plan.

I passed my first VCP in 2.5 several years ago and took the VCP 3 certification at VMworld in 2006. So its definately time to get to the next level of certification from VMware. I signed up for this exam in May and got an invite today for the second step. I’m scheduled to take the VMware Enterprise Exam in Munchen 4th of september.

Another collegue of mine is also scheduled for this test on the same date.. Exiting

Cheap ESX test labs.

I have just had the pleasure of building a couple ESX test labs including features as VMotion, DRS, HA, Update Manager.

This requires two ESX server hosts and some kind of storage. Storage is not easy to come around for test environments, so I used a couple free tools for this. Xtravirt Virtual SAN and Openfiler.

One of the test LABs is created by using two older Dell 2900 servers which is sponsored by one of our customers. The servers had 2 Processors, 4 GB RAM and 216GB of diskspace on 4 discs. Now to the fun part. Using Xtravirts Virtual SAN (XVS) I was able to enable some of the local storage on each server and setup replication between the XVS appliance boxes and present the storage back as ISCSI storage to both ESX hosts. This way I can provision VM guest using the datastores from the ISCSI based “local” storage and still do VMotion of VM guests between ESX boxes. Pretty cool as an ESX test LAB.

The other test LAB was actually created on my laptop with VMware Workstation 6.5 beta 2, which now supports ESX servers 3.5 and running VM guests within them. This was a problem in prior version of VMware Workstation with ESX 3.5. I created another VM guest in VMware Workstation and installed Openfiler on this one and used this to present ISCSI based storage to the two ESX server hosts. All running fine in my LAPTOP.

Performance is not all that good - but its perfect as a test LAB for ESX.

Enable VMotion on the vmkernel interface by commandline

To fully automate an installation of ESX server 3.5 certain esxcfg- commands needs to be used. However these commands doesnt allow us to enable VMotion on a vmkernel interface. To do this in a command line use the vimsh command.

Before enabling VMotion create the neccesary virtual switches and vmkernel interfaces using esxcfg-vswitch and esxcfg-vmknic commands

Examples:

To create a new vswitch called vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -a vSwitch10

To link a vmnic to vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -L vmnic1 vSwitch10

To create a portgroup called VMotion on vSwitch10 do:

• esxcfg-vswitch -A VMotion vSwitch10

To create the vmkernel interface on the VMotion portgroup do:

• esxcfg-vmknic -a -i 10.0.0.1 -n 255.255.255.0 VMotion

To enable that interface as the VMotion interface. First thing we need to know is the interface name of the vmkernel port. To find that do:

• esxcfg-vmknic -l

This lists all the vmkernel interfaces that is created on the ESX host. Its likely that its called vmk0 because its probably the first vmkernel interface created

Now Enable the vmkernel interface to used by VMotion do this:

• vimsh -n -e “/hostsvc/vmotion/vnic_set vmk0″

All done. Now verify in the VirtualCenter client that your vmkernel interface now is enabled for VMotion.

Note: The vimsh command does only work in ESX 3.5 and not 3i unfortunately as 3i doenst have a service console. To use esxcfg- commands with 3i install the VMware Infrastructure RCLI Tool created by VMware.

VMware to release ESX 3i for free next week

VMware finally made the move that everybody predicted and was awaited for a long time: releasing its hypervisor for free.

During the Q2 2008 earnings call the company announced that before the end of July it will release the Update 2 for VMware Infrastructure 3.5 and that will give away the lightweight edition of the product, ESX 3i, for free.

The new 3i edition was introduced at the end of the last year.
It doesn’t change the characteristics of the hypervisor but fundamentally chances a part of its architecture, dropping the Console Operating System (COS) and reducing the overall system footprint to 32Mb.
The change allowed several OEMs to preload this edition of the hypervisor into their servers, through internal USB keys, Solid-State Drives (SSD) or hidden partition in the primary hard drives.

virtualization.info has learned some additional details about the move:

• VI 3.5 and ESX 3i will continue to share a the large majority of the code base (so there will be an ESX 3i Update 2). There will be no delays on the release of both products.
• ESX 3i will continue to have the same features that has today, without additional limitations
• ESX 3i will continue to have the same APIs, allowing anybody to develop free or commercial alternatives to VirtualCenter (despite some features like VMotion cannot be replicated because of the VMware SDK limitations).
• VMware will not require the purchase of any software & support subscription to access the product. Customer will be able to get the code without any restriction.
• The customers that purchased the current version of ESX 3i directly from the VMware online store will be eligible for a rebate.
• The ESX version that includes the Console Operating System (COS) will not be faded out (at least in the short timeframe). Most VMware customers are currently using that version and the company will support them for a long time.
• VMware Server will not be faded out (as many could suppose). The company still sees the product as a valuable proposition for a different kind of audience.

Read more here. at virtualization.info.

VMware updated the VI3 security hardening guide

VMware has updated the VI3 security hardening guide. The new version is available here

Interesting business case on a Compellent and VMware solution

I have made a post before on Compellent’s storage solution because I think they have one of the coolest technologies in the storage market. Their whole idea is to save the customer on cooling and power costs - by offering a storage solution that is based in virtualization, thin provisioning and automated tiered storage (ILM) among others.

Compellent has more than 1500 installations worldwide and Comic Relief is one of them. Read this businesscase on Comic Reliefs implementation on Compellent and VMware.

Comic Relief, has implemented a Compellent storage area network (SAN) and VMware platform to create a virtual storage and server environment. As a result of deploying Compellent technologies such as thin provisioning, automated tiered storage and continuous snapshots, the charity has dramatically improved its IT asset utilisation. It has also cut the number of physical servers required by one fifth, while reducing the costs of powering, cooling and housing their servers – helping Comic Relief meet its environmental IT commitments.

Previously, Comic Relief’s backup data was held off-site on tapes and could take several hours to recover. Today, however, recovery has been reduced to minutes and just a few mouse clicks, using Compellent’s Data Instant Replay snapshots. In addition, the charity has deployed Compellent’s Automated Tiered Storage, called Data Progression, to automatically move less-frequently accessed data to lower-cost disks.

Comic Relief has also increased asset utilisation by deploying Compellent’s thin provisioning technology, called Dynamic Capacity, to eliminate allocated but unused capacity across the network.

The charity only uses physical disk space when data is written. This has provided a fast, affordable and environmentally sensitive way to scale its storage requirements in line with future data growth –enabling the charity to create virtual volumes of any size up front, and add new storage capacity as needed without having to shut down data access.

John Thompson, Comic Relief’s Head of IT, comments: “Compellent’s SAN has been instrumental in reducing our IT capital and operational costs. It also ensures that our systems are better protected from potential downtime and data loss. Compellent has provided us with an extremely cost-effective solution, ensuring that the maximum amount of profit is donated to our global initiatives. We herefore regard Compellent as an absolutely crucial partner in enabling us to adapt to rapid business growth and change – ensuring our long-term survival and continued success.”

Andy Hardy, Compellent Managing Director of International Sales, concludes: “Organisations like Comic Relief are building flexible virtual data centres founded on Compellent storage virtualisation technologies and VMware server virtualisation solutions. Compellent, together with VMware has enabled Comic Relief to move towards an environmentally friendly storage and server infrastructure.

Unlike in traditional SAN environments, the charity does not need to spend money on powering and cooling unused storage space.”

The installation was carried out by Fordway Solutions, a Compellent partner, and one of the UK’s leading enterprise management, data storage, IP networking and IT infrastructure specialists.

About Compellent

Compellent is a leading provider of enterprise-class network storage solutions that are highly scaleable, feature-rich and designed to be easy to use and cost effective. For more information, please visit: http://www.compellent.com