In the virtualization market,
VMware vs Hyper-V is a hot topic, as more than half of the server load is virtualized in the world today. The process continues. It is expected that this year this figure will reach 86%. Therefore, it is important to understand the difference between the offers of
VMware and Microsoft. In the
previous article, we already compared popular server virtualization systems. Now let's try to compare the commercial products of the two leading virtualization software vendors.
VMware remains the leader in this market and launches new virtualization products that meet the specific requirements of IT. Microsoft is gradually increasing its market share and continues to improve its solution. The table below will help you better understand the similarities and differences between
VMware vSphere 6.0 and
Microsoft Hyper-v 2012 R2 — VMware and Microsoft products, two leading developers of virtualization software for
VPS servers , including scalability, hypervisor functionality, clustering tools, network functions and storage support. data.
So,
VMware vSphere is the leading server virtualization platform with virtualized data center management features. This product is characterized by powerful server virtualization tools, robust automated management, high availability features and intelligent operations analysis. Custom templates help automate load balancing and optimize resource allocation.
Microsoft Hyper-V allows you to create and manage a virtualized computing environment, and this
VPS hosting virtualization technology is effectively integrated into Windows Server. When you create a role in the OS for Hyper-V, the necessary components are installed and, optionally, management tools. Components include the Windows hypervisor, the Hyper-V Virtual Machine Management Service, the VIrtualization WMI Provider, and other components such as VM (VMbus), virtualization service provider (VSP), and virtual infrastructure driver (VID).
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The similarities and differences of VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus and Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter help to understand the following table, for convenience, divided into five sections.
1. Hypervisors
| VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus
| Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter
|
Hypervisor Name
| VMware ESXi 6.0
| Hyper-V 2012 R2
|
Max. number of simultaneously running VMs
| 1024
| 1024
|
Max. CPU to host
| 480
| 320
|
Max. CPU cores
| Not limited
| Not limited
|
Virtual processors per host
| 4096
| 2048
|
Max. memory per host
| 6 TB
| 4 TB
|
Oversubscription
| Yes (Memory Balooning)
| Yes (Dynamic Memory)
|
Shared Memory Pages (Sharing Page Sharing)
| Yes (Transparent Page Sharing)
| Not
|
Large Page Support (Large Page)
| Yes
| Yes
|
2. Management
| VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus
| Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter
|
Centralized management
| Yes (vCenter Server + vSphere Advanced Web Client, vCenter Server Appliance, SSO
| Yes (System Center 2012 R2 VMM) (SCVMM)
|
Active Directory integration
| Yes (vCenter and ESXi hosts), enhanced SSO
| Yes (SCVNN)
|
Browser Management
| Yes (improved vSphere web client with enhanced SSO and BDE (Big Data Extension) plugin
| Unlimited via Self Service Portal (SSP)
|
Hypervisor Update
| Yes (via VMware Update Manager, CLI and AutoDeploy)
| Yes (Cluster Aware Update, Fabric Update, Management Server)
|
Cross-platform management
| Free Add-on Multi-Hypervisor Manager
| SCVMM can manage VMware and Citrix virtual environments
|
VM upgrade
| Yes (Update Manager and vCenter Configuration Manager (vCM)
| Yes (control points), includes live exports
|
Maintenance Mode Support
| Yes (automatic migration of VMs using vMotion to another host in the DRS cluster
| Yes
|
Power Management Tool
| Yes, with power distribution
| Yes, with power optimization
|
API for integration with backup systems
| Yes (vStorage Data Protection API)
| Yes (VSS API)
|
VM Templates
| Yes, with a multisite content library
| Yes, including Gen2 templates
|
Host profiles
| Yes (host profiles enhanced for automatic deployment)
| Yes (physical computer profiles)
|
P2V, V2V
| Yes (VMware Converter)
| No (no longer supported, but previous versions of VMM can be used)
|
VM live migration
| Yes (vMotion via vSwitch, vCenter Server and no shared storage, remote vMotion with RTT up to 100 ms)
| Yes (unlimited simultaneous, without shared resources - Shared Nothing; new options - compression and SMB3)
|
Storage Migration
| Yes (Live Storage vMotion, including replicated VMs), optional setting of storage space for each VM disk
| Yes (live and Shared Nothing)
|
Storage profiles
| Yes (storage management by policy)
| Yes (storage classification)
|
VM LOCKSTEP Protection
| Yes (Fault Tolerance), supports 4 vCPU without restrictions on disk types
| Not
|
3. VM Scalability
| VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus
| Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter
|
Max. vCPU on VM
| 128
| 64
|
Max. RAM on VM
| 4 TB
| 1 TB
|
Serial ports
| 32 ports
| Only connected to Named Pipes
|
USB support
| Yes (USB 1.x-3.0), up to 20 USB devices on the VM
| No (except for Enhanced Session Mode)
|
Hot plug support
| Yes (CPU, memory, disk, network card, PCIe SSD)
| Only disk and memory, “hot” adding memory in Dynamic configurations
|
Virtual Network Interface Cards (NIC) on VM
| 10 (any combination of supported NICs)
| 8 types of "network adapter" and 4 - "inherited adapter"
|
IDE virtual disks on VM
| four
| four
|
VHD Capacity
| 62 TB
| 64 TB (VHDX format in Windows Server 2012)
|
Guest OS Support
| Full list of operating systems, including FreeBSD 10.0 and Asianux 4 SP3
| Fewer guest OSs compared to vSphere 6
|
4. High Availability (HA) and Resource Management
| VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus
| Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter
|
Nodes per cluster
| 64
| 64
|
VM per cluster
| 8,000
| 8,000
|
HA (VM restart upon failure)
| VMware HA
| Yes (clustering and heartbeat)
|
Fault Tolerance
| Yes (100% availability for business critical applications in the VM), even with hardware failure
| Not
|
Replication
| Native (vSpare Replication)
| Hyper-V Replica
|
Automatic resource management
| Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) scheduler for load balancing
| Dynamic Optimization
|
Resource pools
| Yes
| Yes (Host Group)
|
Migration compatibility
| Yes (improved vMotion compatibility); EVC in DRS settings
| Yes (for processors)
|
5. Data and Network Storage
| VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus
| Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter
|
Supported Storage Systems
| DAS, NFS, FC, iSCSI, FCoE (hardware and software), vFRC, SDDC
| SMB3, virtual FC, SAS, SATD, iSCSI, FC, FCoE, shared vhdx
|
File system (shared)
| Virtual Machine File System (VMFS v5)
| Cluster Shared Volume (CSV)
|
SAN boot support
| Yes (FC, iSCSI, FCoE and software FCoE)
| Yes (iSCIS, diskless, FC)
|
USB boot
| Yes
| not
|
Virtual SAN
| VSAN 6.0 with flash array support (AFA)
| Advanced (Storage Spaces), tiered storage
|
QoS for storage systems
| Yes (Storage IO Control), including NFS
| Yes
|
NPIV support
| Yes (with RDM)
| Yes (virtual FC)
|
Thin provisioning
| Yes (including SE Spare Disk)
| Yes (Dynamic Disk)
|
SAN Multipathing
| Yes (advanced APD and PDL), PDL Auto Remove
| Yes (DSM and SMB Multichannel)
|
Caching
| Yes (vSphare Flash Read Cache)
| Yes (CSV Cache)
|
API for integration with storage systems
| Yes (VASA, VAAI and VAMP)
| Yes (SMI-S / SMP, ODX, Trim)
|
Nic teaming
| Yes (up to 32 NIC)
| Yes
|
Private VLAN support
| Yes
| Yes
|
Jumbo Frames Support
| Yes
| Yes
|
Network QoS
| Yes (Network IO Control, DSCP)
| Yes
|
IPv6 support
| Yes
| Yes
|
Traffic monitoring
| Yes (Port Mirroring)
| Yes (Port Mirroring)
|
We hope that this table, being, of course, far from complete, contains useful information for comparing VMware vSphere 6.0 Enterprise Plus and Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 R2 Datacenter.
