After reading yet-another-uninformed-pro-vSphere blog post on a tech “news” site, I just have to say something. Stop. Please stop. Today I read on Tech World that Microsoft does not have anything to compare with DRS. Eh, Dynamic Optimization anybody?
EDIT: The latest last-gasp from a vFanboy was “Hyper-V does not have bare-metal host deployment”. No it does not; VMM has that feature – and VMM 2012 R2 adds a hell of a lot more. I bet ESXi doesn’t do bare-metal host deployment either, eh children?
Then there’s the package comparisons. VMware’s packaging is a nightmare to figure out. What feature is in what version of vSphere? I don’t have a friggin clue. Pricing vSphere makes choosing a phone plan or a health insurance plan look easy. To be safe, the “journalists” (I reserve real use of that word for a very small subset of the tech news biz) choose Enterprise Plus, the most expensive SKU of vSphere.
How can we compare Hyper-V versus vSphere?
| Microsoft SKU | VMware SKU | Comments | Valid Comparison? |
| Hyper-V Server 2012 | ESXi Free | Free versus free, hypervisor only, with no guest OS licensing or host management bundled. | Yes |
| Windows Server Hyper-V | vSphere suites | On the Microsoft side, you have Hyper-V with guest OS licensing bundled. No central host management (VMM). On the VMware side you have their hypervisor with no guest OS bundling PLUS central host management solution (vCenter). |
No |
The first comparison compares apples with apples. The second, the one that lazy “journalists”, like those on TechWorld, choose to use. It’s not a fair comparison. Microsoft and VMware do not bundle their products in similar packages. The missing piece from the Microsoft bundle is System Center – Virtual Machine Manager. VMM is a central host management solution that does pretty much everything vCenter can do, and more. But you can’t buy VMM on it’s own. Let’s keep searching options …
| Microsoft SKU | VMware SKU | Comments | Valid Comparison? |
| Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) or Enrolment for Core Infrastructure (ECI) | vSphere suites | Windows Server + all of System Center with host and VM licensing. From VMware, we still only have host + host management licensing. |
No |
| Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) or Enrolment for Core Infrastructure (ECI) | VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise | Windows Server + all of System Center with host and VM licensing. From VMware, we now have vSphere Enterprise Plus and a boat load of various management SKUs. |
Close, but no |
Comparing CIS/ECI to vSphere suites is *giggles* not fair to VMware – who thought I’d ever say that!?!?!? In the Microsoft CIS/ECI stack you have all of System Center, a complete service delivery, cloud, backup, health monitoring, infrastructure deliver/management, and so on, for a automating data centre.
I don’t know the VMware stack – as I said, I find it completely confusing compared to the simple Microsoft bundling – but the vCloud suite seems to have a tonne of stuff in it. You could compare the $11,495 vCloud Suite Enterprise with $5,959.20 ECI bundle. You should remember that the price of Windows Server Datacenter for licensing your VMs in $4,809 per 2 CPU host. That means that to run Windows Server VMs on your vSphere, your cost per 2 CPU host has gone up to $16,304.
So what about the apples-to-apples comparisons for the top end? Then you need to compare:
| Microsoft SKU | VMware SKU | Comments | Valid Comparison? |
| Core Infrastructure Suite (CIS) or Enrolment for Core Infrastructure (ECI) | VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise + Windows Server Datacenter | Windows Server + all of System Center with host and VM licensing. From VMware, we now have vSphere Enterprise Plus and a boat load of various management SKUs, and VM licensing. |
Yes |
In summary, Mr/Miss “journalist” for future apple-to-apple comparisons you should stick to one of the following:
- Hyper-V Server versus ESXi Free
- Microsoft ECI suite versus VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise plus Windows Server Datacenter
I like your information.
I have the same issue when I see comparisons of Hyper-V and ESXi, if they done there homework, which takes time and technical knowledge, we all could have a better picture of which hypervisor is good for you (the small, middle or large enterprise)