Hypervisor wars: To be continued

Hypervisor wars are a continuous affair, and it's probably better to be a hypervisor agnostic. Nevertheless, it is possible to speak on this topic for a long time, which was the reason for the appearance of this article. For those who understand virtualization, there will not be a special revelation that the two largest players are VMware and Microsoft ( Hyper-V ). A striking confirmation of this is “Gartner Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization”, which in July 2015 fixed the positions of these two leaders.

Undoubtedly, the leading company in the market is VMware. Taking up this position was not so difficult for the company - with their most popular virtualization platform and an extensive portfolio of complementary products. Nevertheless, Microsoft's Hyper-V , the main competitor of VMware, is also fighting for the title of leader. Having survived some difficulties, today it is a rather mature product; It is not surprising that many organizations prefer him, especially small and medium-sized businesses.

The conventional wisdom is that VMware is the only option for large virtualization systems, and Hyper-V is good for small and medium deployments. Now this is not a completely true statement: the new version of Hyper-V can offer a lot of things in large infrastructures, and VMware can be an excellent option for small environments.
Last year, an updated version of vSphere was released, and the Hyper-V update ( Hyper-V 2012 R2) is dated 2013.

So, let's compare two hypervisors.
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Round 1: The Easier, the Better

The basic VMware hypervisor - ESXi is the most lightweight option, the so-called “ bare-metal ” hypervisor.


Since the sixth version, the volume of the hypervisor has been reduced to 150 MB. In contrast, Hyper-V requires some components of Windows; the minimum requirements are Windows Server Core, which is about 5 GB. However, most people use a full-scale installation of Windows, taking up to 9.1 GB of memory, which is 60 times more than that of Esxi.

This round by the number of points definitely wins the company VMware.

Round 2: The Harder The Better

As noted earlier, for a fairly long time, the VMware product was the No. 1 choice for corporations and large companies. Now here is Hyper-V .

In terms of scalability, VMware supports up to 64 nodes in a cluster of updated vSphere, which is twice the performance of the previous version. One host can now accommodate up to 1,000 virtual machines, up to 480 physical processors and up to 12 TB of RAM. Compare - Hyper-V 2012 supports up to 64 nodes per cluster, up to 8000 virtual machines per cluster, individual Hyper-V hosts can accommodate up to 1024 virtual machines, 320 physical processors and up to 4 TB of RAM.

It also provides access to some features that are considered more advanced than what Hyper-V offers. To get the same features with Microsoft, you have to license System Center 2012 R2 with Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). You will also need PowerShell and several interfaces.

Although Esxi is a hypervisor for large objects, it is only slightly inferior in this hand-to-hand combat.

Round 3: The best things in life are free (at least almost)

One of the most significant advantages of Hyper-V is that it is free. If you ask users why they use Hyper-V in their infrastructures, the answer will almost always be the same - the cost. But is it true?

On the one hand, a Windows Server 2012 license allows you to run two virtual entities, and Windows Server 2012 Datacenter is released with an unlimited number of virtual entities on a single machine. If you intend to invest in Windows, then yes, it’s really free. Well, almost free.

In reality, in order to effectively manage multiple Hyper-V hosts, you will have to work (and have licenses) on System Center 2012 R2 with Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). Thus, the advantage against vCenter almost disappears.

Thus, it is not entirely clear which product is cheaper, it all depends on the specific circumstances. Sufficiently large organizations using Microsoft technologies may still have to run System Center 2012, regardless of the way they use the hypervisor for virtualization. Smaller organizations are likely to autonomously use Hyper-V . Only on this basis, Hyper-V can not be considered defeated in this round.

Round 4: Ready Queue

This little problem is becoming more and more common, and it is unique to Esxi. The reason many people don’t want is to virtualize individual applications at a cost that virtualization adds to any server. This is an additional level of management for IT administrators who need an eye and an eye. And sooner or later Ready Queue will lift its head. So what is it - Ready Queue?

In a nutshell, this is the time during which the virtual machine must be ready to start before it is scheduled by the processor scheduler.

In principle, the more virtual machines (in terms of processor cores), the more chances for Ready Queue. This problem primarily concerns those who mistakenly believe that a large virtual machine has greater performance.

While this is true in the physical server world, in VMware virtual infrastructure, this leads to performance problems that are difficult to identify and even harder to fix. Not to say that Hyper-V is smooth on this part, but this time it’s a victory.

So who is the winner?

It all depends on the specific circumstances. The truth is that in terms of capabilities, both hypervisors are strong enough. Both parts of the equation are balanced by those who have used Microsoft products for many years, and by an army of VMware supporters and followers.

Let's see if the current situation will change the Hyper-V upgrade that will occur simultaneously with the release of Windows Server 2016.