Choosing a Virtualization Platform: Why VMware
Companies choosing a platform for implementing their IT infrastructure virtualization, along with VMware products, consider alternatives based on other hypervisors, primarily Microsoft Hyper-V, and the KVM hypervisor developed as part of OpenSource. To help these companies make the right choice, the Taneja Group analytical agency last year conducted a detailed comparison of several solutions for building software-defined data centers ( SDDC ) and implementing hybrid clouds from three vendors. This study examined the possibilities of using the following packages:
- VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 Enterprise (including vSphere Enterprise Plus and vCenter Server Standard), Virtual SAN and NSX;
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter (including basic Hyper-V functionality plus Hyper-V Replica, Storage Spaces, Hyper-V Network Virtualization, Hyper-V Extensible Switch and other advanced features), System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter;
- Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI), consisting of RHEL OpenStack Platform 4.0, RHEV 3.4
(KVM), RHEV-M 3.4 and CloudForms 3.0 IaaS Management. This Red Hat package is a commercial version of the OpenStack distribution (solutions from Cisco and Amazon were also included in the study).
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Each package was evaluated by the possibilities of data center virtualization, the introduction of hardware and software infrastructure, automation and management of operations and the introduction of hybrid clouds. And here are the conclusions:
According to the Taneja Group, of these three vendors, VMware offers the most mature, popular and functional platform for implementing virtualization; its solution provides independence from the hardware platform, dynamic resource allocation based on rules and functions oriented to virtual machines and applications.
VMware received the highest marks in the “automation and management” category, because its solution implements automatic resource allocation, intelligent management of operations. VMware solutions have the most advanced features of hybrid clouds, they are compatible with different types of loads and support migration between private and public clouds along with the synchronization of directories and templates of these clouds. In addition, VMware solutions provide the construction of coordinated high-availability and security frameworks for the private and public cloud.
VMware has the most powerful virtualization features and experience of using them in the corporate sector since the beginning of the last decade. Although Microsoft has expanded its virtualization platform in recent years, Hyper-V is still far behind vSphere in popularity in the corporate sector and business critical systems. In mid-2014, Hyper-V supported about 35 guest OSs, while vSphere had almost a hundred of them. In recent releases of Windows Server 2012, several important new Hyper-V features have been added (for example, Extensible Virtual Switch and Replica), but the main disadvantage of the Hyper-V architecture is still the use of the parent OS, which reduces the security and availability of the hypervisor when installing patches and maintenance of the maternal windows server. In addition, dependence on Windows Server means that the implementation of new virtualization features in Hyper-V only occurs when new versions of this OS are released.
RHEV uses the KVM hypervisor, which runs the vast majority of OpenStack clouds. Now RHEV is very popular with service providers and application developers for embedded systems. Like Hyper-V, RHEL is an OS-centric hypervisor (its parent OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)), which impairs security and reduces accessibility due to the need to install RHEL patches. It supports only 15 guest OS, significantly yielding vSphere and Hyper-V by this indicator. In Red Hat, the latest releases have added a number of new features, but it still does not have a virtual distributed switch, storage pools, load balancing, and storage I / O controls and networks. Enterprise customers rarely use RHEV-based OpenStack clouds.
vSphere can scale to multiple clusters of hosts and expand to new clusters and virtual machines as needs grow. As shown by the Taneja Group tests, the vSphere architecture supports a larger number of virtual machines per host, and these VMs processed various combinations of business-critical applications. The vcenter Server and vcenter Operations Manager management tools can scale to several thousand and even tens of thousands of VMs.
Due to limitations of the Hyper-V architecture, it cannot scale as efficiently as vSphere — for example, this hypervisor cannot manage logical resource pools (processors, memory, network resources, and storage resources); therefore, to ensure stable performance of virtual machines, you need to use dedicated cluster of hosts. RHEV also does not support processor and memory resource pools that scale to multiple cluster hosts and does not provide resource isolation or pool sharing.
VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise provides high availability, fault tolerance and disaster recovery with vSphere HA, vMotion, Storage vMotion, Fault Tolerance and vCenter Site Recovery Manager. To reduce planned stops for server maintenance or storage, the vMotion and Storage vMotion functions transfer virtual machines and their disks online without interrupting applications and users. The vSphere Replication feature supports multiple replication options for vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to protect against major crashes. SRM provides centralized disaster recovery planning, automatic failover and failback from a backup site or from a vCloud cloud, as well as disaster recovery testing without disrupting applications.
In Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V, HA's powerful features are implemented using Failover clustering, including crash detection and online migration of VMs and virtual machines. However, Failover clustering is not optimized for VM protection.
Red Hat RHEV is capable of detecting host OS or guest OS crashes and supports online migration of VMs and virtual machines, but it does not have built-in backup and replication features for quick disaster recovery.
The Taneja Group study was released in mid-2014. Over the past year, vSphere 5.5 first entered the market, then the sixth version of vSphere, and solutions for virtualization of data centers of other vendors, but a significant technological gap between VMware and competitors remains. In a report published this summer by Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure, the analytic agency Gartner says that VMware is still the leader in terms of virtualization platform capabilities and market dominance, and the company's customers highly appreciate the capabilities of VMware products and their support. .
SAFEDATA uses VMware vSphere and other VMware products as a virtualization platform in its Virtual Data Center (VDC) solution, on the basis of which the customer can independently create an IT infrastructure of any complexity completely analogous to solutions on physical equipment. HP BladeSystem c-Class blades and NetApp FAS6220 and FAS8060 storage systems are used as the hardware platform for the solution.
The VDC customer receives computing resources for building a virtual infrastructure from the SFCLOUD cloud located in two geographically distributed data centers. Resilience to vSphere node failures in SFCLOUD is based on vSphere High Availability (HA) technology. In addition to directly managing this virtual infrastructure using VMware vCloud Director, a customer can flexibly distribute cloud resources allocated to his applications depending on load changes, for example, if at some point the number of requests to one of the applications increases significantly, then you can temporarily transfer some processors allocated to other applications. In addition, in the process of using the cloud service VDC, the customer can increase or decrease the amount of resources allocated to him, as well as apply different pricing models.
All actions related to the management of the service, changes in its parameters, performance monitoring, as well as financial documents are carried out through the web interface of the Personal Account of the VDC customer. You can learn more about VDC here .
- VMware vCloud Suite 5.5 Enterprise (including vSphere Enterprise Plus and vCenter Server Standard), Virtual SAN and NSX;
- Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter (including basic Hyper-V functionality plus Hyper-V Replica, Storage Spaces, Hyper-V Network Virtualization, Hyper-V Extensible Switch and other advanced features), System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter;
- Red Hat Cloud Infrastructure (RHCI), consisting of RHEL OpenStack Platform 4.0, RHEV 3.4
(KVM), RHEV-M 3.4 and CloudForms 3.0 IaaS Management. This Red Hat package is a commercial version of the OpenStack distribution (solutions from Cisco and Amazon were also included in the study).
')
Each package was evaluated by the possibilities of data center virtualization, the introduction of hardware and software infrastructure, automation and management of operations and the introduction of hybrid clouds. And here are the conclusions:
According to the Taneja Group, of these three vendors, VMware offers the most mature, popular and functional platform for implementing virtualization; its solution provides independence from the hardware platform, dynamic resource allocation based on rules and functions oriented to virtual machines and applications.
VMware received the highest marks in the “automation and management” category, because its solution implements automatic resource allocation, intelligent management of operations. VMware solutions have the most advanced features of hybrid clouds, they are compatible with different types of loads and support migration between private and public clouds along with the synchronization of directories and templates of these clouds. In addition, VMware solutions provide the construction of coordinated high-availability and security frameworks for the private and public cloud.
Data Center Virtualization
VMware has the most powerful virtualization features and experience of using them in the corporate sector since the beginning of the last decade. Although Microsoft has expanded its virtualization platform in recent years, Hyper-V is still far behind vSphere in popularity in the corporate sector and business critical systems. In mid-2014, Hyper-V supported about 35 guest OSs, while vSphere had almost a hundred of them. In recent releases of Windows Server 2012, several important new Hyper-V features have been added (for example, Extensible Virtual Switch and Replica), but the main disadvantage of the Hyper-V architecture is still the use of the parent OS, which reduces the security and availability of the hypervisor when installing patches and maintenance of the maternal windows server. In addition, dependence on Windows Server means that the implementation of new virtualization features in Hyper-V only occurs when new versions of this OS are released.
RHEV uses the KVM hypervisor, which runs the vast majority of OpenStack clouds. Now RHEV is very popular with service providers and application developers for embedded systems. Like Hyper-V, RHEL is an OS-centric hypervisor (its parent OS is Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL)), which impairs security and reduces accessibility due to the need to install RHEL patches. It supports only 15 guest OS, significantly yielding vSphere and Hyper-V by this indicator. In Red Hat, the latest releases have added a number of new features, but it still does not have a virtual distributed switch, storage pools, load balancing, and storage I / O controls and networks. Enterprise customers rarely use RHEV-based OpenStack clouds.
Scalability
vSphere can scale to multiple clusters of hosts and expand to new clusters and virtual machines as needs grow. As shown by the Taneja Group tests, the vSphere architecture supports a larger number of virtual machines per host, and these VMs processed various combinations of business-critical applications. The vcenter Server and vcenter Operations Manager management tools can scale to several thousand and even tens of thousands of VMs.
Due to limitations of the Hyper-V architecture, it cannot scale as efficiently as vSphere — for example, this hypervisor cannot manage logical resource pools (processors, memory, network resources, and storage resources); therefore, to ensure stable performance of virtual machines, you need to use dedicated cluster of hosts. RHEV also does not support processor and memory resource pools that scale to multiple cluster hosts and does not provide resource isolation or pool sharing.
Business continuity
VMware vCloud Suite Enterprise provides high availability, fault tolerance and disaster recovery with vSphere HA, vMotion, Storage vMotion, Fault Tolerance and vCenter Site Recovery Manager. To reduce planned stops for server maintenance or storage, the vMotion and Storage vMotion functions transfer virtual machines and their disks online without interrupting applications and users. The vSphere Replication feature supports multiple replication options for vCenter Site Recovery Manager (SRM) to protect against major crashes. SRM provides centralized disaster recovery planning, automatic failover and failback from a backup site or from a vCloud cloud, as well as disaster recovery testing without disrupting applications.
In Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 with Hyper-V, HA's powerful features are implemented using Failover clustering, including crash detection and online migration of VMs and virtual machines. However, Failover clustering is not optimized for VM protection.
Red Hat RHEV is capable of detecting host OS or guest OS crashes and supports online migration of VMs and virtual machines, but it does not have built-in backup and replication features for quick disaster recovery.
VDC from SAFEDATA
The Taneja Group study was released in mid-2014. Over the past year, vSphere 5.5 first entered the market, then the sixth version of vSphere, and solutions for virtualization of data centers of other vendors, but a significant technological gap between VMware and competitors remains. In a report published this summer by Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure, the analytic agency Gartner says that VMware is still the leader in terms of virtualization platform capabilities and market dominance, and the company's customers highly appreciate the capabilities of VMware products and their support. .
SAFEDATA uses VMware vSphere and other VMware products as a virtualization platform in its Virtual Data Center (VDC) solution, on the basis of which the customer can independently create an IT infrastructure of any complexity completely analogous to solutions on physical equipment. HP BladeSystem c-Class blades and NetApp FAS6220 and FAS8060 storage systems are used as the hardware platform for the solution.
The VDC customer receives computing resources for building a virtual infrastructure from the SFCLOUD cloud located in two geographically distributed data centers. Resilience to vSphere node failures in SFCLOUD is based on vSphere High Availability (HA) technology. In addition to directly managing this virtual infrastructure using VMware vCloud Director, a customer can flexibly distribute cloud resources allocated to his applications depending on load changes, for example, if at some point the number of requests to one of the applications increases significantly, then you can temporarily transfer some processors allocated to other applications. In addition, in the process of using the cloud service VDC, the customer can increase or decrease the amount of resources allocated to him, as well as apply different pricing models.
All actions related to the management of the service, changes in its parameters, performance monitoring, as well as financial documents are carried out through the web interface of the Personal Account of the VDC customer. You can learn more about VDC here .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/269949/
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