Print - Virtualization Shootout, Part 1

Executive Summary:
With the release of Windows Server 2008 and its all-new Hyper-V virtualization support, Microsoft has finally mounted a serious challenge to VMware’s mature and robust ESX Server, the established leader in the enterprise virtualization market.

With the release of Windows Server 2008 and its all-new Hyper-V virtualization support, Microsoft has finally mounted a serious challenge to VMware’s mature and robust ESX Server, the established leader in the enterprise virtualization market. In this twopart article I’ll compare Microsoft’s Hyper-V to VMware’s ESX Server 3.5. In part 1 of this two-part comparative review, I’ll compare the different architecture and feature sets of each product. In part 2, I’ll do some basic performance testing of the two products to see if Hyper-V can deliver comparable performance to ESX Server.

A Tale of Two Architectures
Both VMware’s ESX Server 3.5 and Microsoft’s Hyper-V are built using a hypervisorbased architecture. This architecture gives both platforms bare-metal performance that significantly outperforms older hosted virtualization products such as Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 and VMware’s Virtual Server 2.0. Hosted virtualization products run the virtualization software on top of the host OS, which introduces additional overhead and a longer code execution path for the virtual machines (VMs) that run in the hosted virtualization environment. In contrast, hypervisor-based products such as ESX Server and Hyper-V are designed to run the hypervisor directly on the system hardware. Although ESX Server and Hyper-V both share a similar hypervisor-based architecture, there are significant differences in the way the products are designed, as you can see in Figure 1.

In both cases, the hypervisor runs directly on the system hardware. However, with ESX Server the hardware drivers are all part of the hypervisor, which significantly increases the size of the hypervisor. In addition, the device drivers are created by the hardware vendors, which introduces third-party code into the hypervisor and limits the hardware that ESX Server supports. Even so, ESX Server is supported on most of the server systems made by all the tier-one vendors, such as HP, Dell, and IBM. Many of these vendors also sell systems configurations with VMware ESX Server preloaded.

In contrast, Hyper-V uses a microkernel hypervisor in which the hypervisor contains the minimal amount of code required to schedule and share hardware resources between the active VMs. The Hyper-V hypervisor has no device drivers and no third-party code, which ensures the best possible performance and reduces security exposure. Hyper-V leverages the native Windows device driver model, utilizing the device drivers in the guest VMs. For more information about the Hyper-V architecture, see “A First Look at Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V” (February 2008, InstantDoc ID 97857).

Both products are managed from the first VM partition. In ESX Server this VM partition, typically called the service console, is based on the Linux shell and is managed via the command line. However, you can download an easier-to-use Windowsbased management client, called the Virtual Infrastructure Client, from ESX Server’s Web console. Hyper-V is also managed using the VM running in the first partition. In Hyper-V this partition is called the parent partition. In addition to VM management, the parent partition is also used to run VMs with legacy OSs such as Windows NT and Windows 2000 that can’t utilize Hyper-V’s new VMBus architecture and must use the older emulated hardware model.

Pound for Pound
Unlike the earlier version of Virtual Server 2005 R2, Hyper-V’s new architecture and 64-bit foundation bring its feature set into parity with the features that are present in VMware’s ESX Server. Table 1 shows a feature-by-feature comparison of VMware’s ESX Server 3.5 and Microsoft’s Server 2008 Hyper-V.

The primary differences begin with the hypervisor itself. As I explained previously, the ESX Server hypervisor is a heavyweight hypervisor that contains device drivers. In contrast, the Hyper-V hypervisor is a thin hypervisor that contains no drivers and no thirdparty code. Hyper-V’s device drivers are in the guest OSs, which makes the Hyper-V hypervisor smaller and more secure. Both platforms provide support for 32-bit x86 and 64-bit x64 guest OSs and large VMs with up to 64GB of RAM per VM. For more efficient memory usage, ESX Server provides a shared memory feature that lets VMs share common memory blocks. Although this feature can enable more simultaneously active VMs, it generates additional performance overhead. Hyper-V doesn’t support shared memory between VMs. Both platforms support booting VMs from either an iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN. One area where VMware excels is in support for live migration (i.e., moving running VMs from one host to another). However, this feature requires the VMware Virtual- Center Server product. Hyper-V doesn’t support live migration, but when coupled with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager, it does provide support for what Microsoft calls quick migration— quickly saving the state of a running VM and then moving that VM and saved state to another host. Quick migration requires the use of failover clustering. ESX Server is limited to 128 active VMs (probably enough for anyone), whereas Hyper-V is limited only by the available system resources. Unlike the desktop virtualization products, neither product provides support for guest audio or USB. ESX Server supports guest VM backup using the integrated Consolidated Backup feature, which takes a snapshot image of the VM and writes it to a backup server. Hyper-V supports live backup of VMs using Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS).

Are You Experienced?
Setting up both systems was relatively easy. The basic setup for ESX Server was actually easier than the Hyper-V installation. Although the ESX Server installation was character based, the screens were easy to follow and I had a completely functional server in about 20 minutes.

For Hyper-V the actual installation process was easy but the subsequent system setup on Windows Server Core was a manual piecemeal process that required a good deal of Windows command-line knowledge to complete. The Hyper-V virtualization role can be installed on either a full Server 2008 installation or on a minimal Server Core installation. Server Core is the better choice for a virtualization server host because it has all the extraneous Windows components stripped out (e.g., the graphical shell, Internet Explorer—IE, Outlook). This bare-metal approach gives Server Core less overhead and makes it more efficient. Server Core is also more secure because of the reduced attack surface area, as well as more reliable because of the smaller number of components that might need patching. Installing the Server Core OS took about 15 minutes; running the subsequent system configuration commands took about 20 more minutes and a couple of reboots. For more information about the commands to configure a Server Core system and add the Hyper-V virtualization role, see Top 10, “Essential Server Core Setup Commands.”

To manage the system, I needed to attach to it remotely using the Hyper-V management console, which Figure 2 shows. You can run this console from a Server 2008 system with Hyper-V installed or from a Windows Vista system with the update installed that’s discussed in the Microsoft article “Availability of the Windows Vista Service Pack 1 management tools for the Hyper-V release candidate” (support.microsoft.com/?kbid=949758). Any Windows administrator will feel right at home with this Microsoft Management Console (MMC) 3.0–based interface.

You can manage multiple Hyper-V server instances in the console’s left pane. Selecting a server instance displays that server’s VMs in the center Virtual Machines pane. You can then manage the VMs by right-clicking them and selecting options from the context menu. All Hyper-V management tasks can be performed using the Hyper-V Management Console.

Managing ESX Server is another story. ESX Server uses a Linux-based command shell—this command line might be comfortable to a Linux administrator, but I’m not one. (In fact, I rarely need to deal with Linux.) Fortunately, the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client is a graphical tool that you can download by pointing your browser to the server’s URL. Figure 3 shows the VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client.

The VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client lets you create and manage VMs. However, it doesn’t let you perform server management functions such as adding and removing network cards. You need to use the command line to perform those types of functions.

Using built-in management consoles to manage a few servers is just one aspect of virtual server management. But if you have more than just a few virtual server host platforms to manage, you’ll need more powerful management tools. Both VMware and Microsoft offer such tools. To find out more about the virtualization management tools offered by each company, see “Virtualization Management.”

Continue to page 2

The Price Is Right
A big difference between VMware’s ESX Server and Microsoft’s Hyper-V is the price. Despite the trend toward free virtualization products, ESX Server has always been a chargeable product and is the staple of VMware’s product line.

The fact that VMware charges for ESX Server hasn’t hindered the product’s adoption. Its performance and robustness have convinced many organizations to use it as their primary virtualization platform. For this review I used the VMware Infrastructure Foundation product, which includes ESX Server 3.5, VMware Virtual Machine File System (VMFS), VMware Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing (vSMP), the VirtualCenter agent, VMware Consolidated Backup, and VMware Update Manager.

In contrast, Hyper-V is part of the Server 2008 OS, making it essentially free to organizations running Server 2008. Hyper-V is included in the following x64 editions of Server 2008:

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition x64
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition x64
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition x64

Because Hyper-V is a 64-bit technology, you need x64 hardware and you need to run one of the x64 editions of Server 2008. Mysteriously, Microsoft does make three versions of Server 2008 that don’t include Hyper-V (aptly named Windows Server 2008 without Hyper-V)—but the price difference is negligible, at $28. Hyper-V is also not included in Windows Web Server 2008, Windows HPC Server 2008, or Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-Based Systems.

Table 2 shows pricing for the two configurations I tested. In each case the system was set up to run eight VMs, all with Server 2008 Enterprise Edition. This table uses retail pricing. Most businesses use Microsoft’s volume licensing, which has a lower cost for the Windows Server OS. Remember that in a production scenario you would also need CALs to access the Windows Server OS. The retail prices in Table 2 include 25 CALs. However, in a production setting you would typically require additional CALs.

Windows Server 2003 R2 and Server 2008 Enterprise Edition allow as many as four active virtual Windows instances at no additional cost. This licensing is the same whether you use Microsoft or VMware virtualization products. Running eight active VMs requires two Server 2008 Enterprise Edition licenses. Although not used in this comparison, Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition and Server 2008 Datacenter Edition allow an unlimited number of virtual Windows instances no matter which virtualization platform you choose.

First Across the Line…
The basic virtualization and feature sets provided by Microsoft’s Hyper-V and VMware’s ESX Server are quite comparable and so far it’s a dead heat. ESX Server offers broader support for more Linux distributions and has a couple of more advanced features, such as support for live migration and shared memory between VMs. However, its command-line management is unfamiliar to most Windows administrators, its limited device support requires a more restrictive hardware platform, and it comes at a higher price than Hyper-V—which is essentially incorporated into Server 2008. Stay tuned for part 2 where I continue this shootout by looking at ESX Server’s and Hyper-V’s advanced systems management and then find out where the rubber meets that road as I run some revealing performance tests.

II registered specifically to comment on this, I must say it was an interesting read. Comments such as "The VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client [...] doesn’t let you perform server management functions such as adding and removing network cards." are just _wrong_, there's no other way of putting it. I'm also not entirely sure of your driver arguments - as I understand from looking at the ESX boot procedure, it only loads the ones it needs, and you're also relying on thirdparty drivers for hyper-v. In fact, I would agree with the infoworld post (http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisedesktop/archives/2008/05/hypervs_achille.html), the drivers are just not up to snuff for me to trust running multiple servers in a production environment on it.

Yo brother, if you ain't familiar with the cli either nix or Mickeysoft how do you survive in the real world ? All S&P 500 enterprizes have nix and MS on board. But I hope you will have a good look at DRS and HA along with storage virtualisation which are available with VirtualCenter, I did not hear you mention this sofar.

> The VMware Virtual Infrastructure Client lets you create and manage VMs. However, it doesn’t let you perform server management functions such as adding and removing network cards. You need to use the command line to perform those types of functions. The above statement and several others in the article are false. One can manage ESX without knowing any Linux. The article insinuates that one can manage (i.e. create VM, configure the host, etc) from the console using a command line. That is not true and really casts doubt on the article an “unbiased” comparison. The VI client can manage the host fully including adding hardware. The install process does have a GUI version and with ESXi you essentially don’t have a service console anymore. > The Hyper-V hypervisor has no device drivers This of course is a complex topic but in this article it is written to insinuate that Hyper-V will be a much more stable product. That remains to be seen, but it is misleading to suggest that it will be based on what is still release candidate software. The hypervisor level for ESX (the vmkernel) is a few MB in size – about 200K lines of code. The Hyper-V hypervisor is smaller (600 kb), but it has a significant dependence on the parent partition (as well as for device drivers). If you lose the parent partition with Hyper-V you lose your VM (see 1st link). With ESX if the service console goes down, your VMs continue to run. You might not be able to manage your host, but at least the VMs run until you can bring the host down at a more convenient time. Which is the better architecture remains to be seen, but to say Hyper-V is better today is poor journalism. http://blogs.technet.com/mattmcspirit/archive/2008/05/16/getting-my-head-around-the-hyper-v-architecture.aspx http://it20.info/blogs/main/archive/2007/06/17/25.aspx

continuing from above... >> which introduces third-party code into the hypervisor and limits the hardware that ESX Server supports. << Various statements in the article suggest that ESX will be less stable due to 3rd party drivers. It’s somewhat of a misconception that one can add any Linux driver to ESX to have it support a given piece of hardware. This is not the case. Driver are created in co-operation with VMware and based on past experience, I have no concerns about drivers that have been developed for ESX. All software, including drivers, will have potential bugs, but this is the case with drivers for both ESX and Hyper-V and in both cases VMware and Microsoft are taking the steps necessary to ensure that only quality drivers are provided. A few other shorter points on this http://windowsitpro.com/files/01/98879/table_01.gif - ESX is 32 bit / Hyper-V is 64 bit therefore it is better. Your performance testing will show that is not the case. - “Hyper-V can run an unlimited number of active VMs” - but practically how many will a host be able to run. The 128 VM limit for ESX in a practical limit. - Hyper-V host memory supported is 2TB – ESX is actually 256 GB and that’s the tested figure.

And lastly ... :) Pricing – a) if one is going to include 3 years of 24 x 7 support on the VMware side, then one should also include Software Assurance on the Microsoft side as well as support cost. It would be more accurate to have the cost of ESX Foundation at $1545 and that would include one year’s worth of upgrades and support. b) It would have been better to have used Datacenter processor licensing in this case. In both cases, 2 DC processor licenses would be roughly $6000 lowering the overall cost of both systems. c) Pricing comparisons such as this are disappointing. The cost of a system is much more than just adding up the licensing components. Plus in the situation given, ESXi would be a fairer product to use with a price of only $500 (actually $99 from Dell). But in reality, one must add up the cost of hardware, training, VM density, etc to really do a fair cost comparison.

Another thing that is not pretty correct is the data in Figure 1. Support for 32 socket in ESX and 64 socket in Hyper-V is wrong. ESX supports 32 logical processors that in actual tecnology would mean 32 cores (example: 8-socket quad-core). Hyper-V only supports 16 logical processor or simply put, with the latest technology, 4-socket quad-core. When Intel is coming out with their new 6-core cpu's (sooner than later) this will make 24 cores for a standard 4-socket systems .... Hyper-V won't likely be able to handle that. I wanted to mention this because this is usually a big source of confusion. Massimo.

Just dont understand the many comments in the article, such as the one I've copied in below, that refer to ESX as the "heavyweight" hypervisor - inferring that Hyper-V is a smaller footprint, with therefore a smaller attack surface. That is rediculous - has the author ever heard of ESX Server 3i - or whatever VMware is calling it these days? Our testing shows ESX Server 3i - is a fully functional hypervisor in a 32 mg footprint. Our current evaluations of the pre-release of Hyper-V, which requires at least Windows Server Core to function, show that it has at minimum a 3.9GB footprint. That's a full 120X larger than ESX 3i. Even ESX Server 3.5 with the service console is arund 2GB - half the size of Hyper-V. With obvious faults like this inthe aurthors analysis, it makes me wonder how much influence MSFT had in this article - I can't view the rest of the analysis as unbiased - the article even uses MSFT graphics. "the ESX Server hypervisor is a heavyweight hypervisor that contains device drivers. In contrast, the Hyper-V hypervisor is a thin hypervisor that contains no drivers and no thirdparty code."

Here are some major corrections for your article. It will be in multiple parts: Note: I do work for VMware but the items I'm listing are public fact and just corrections to the author's research. 1) The "real" drivers for the Hyper-V solution are housed in the parent partition. They use regular Windows drivers developed by MS and 3rd parties like the OEMs and others. The VMs have generic drivers that must push traffic through the real drivers in the parent partition. Both VMware and MS use 3rd party drivers. The big disadvantage of the Hyper-V solution is scaling of I/O since all I/O must go through the parent. MS delayed the release of Hyper-V previously because of "scalability of I/O" issues. It's also been well blogged and documented on the web. A little google search will turn it up in a flash. What you stated in the article is completely inaccurate about the drivers and shows a complete lack of knowledge of the architecture. You also might want to read Randall Kennedy's article about 3rd party drivers in Hyper-V and the security risk there: http://weblog.infoworld.com/enterprisedesktop/archives/2008/05/hypervs_achille.html.

2) Reliance on the Linux CLI: Very few people out there use the CLI in our Linux Service Console. Furthermore this has been removed in the ESXi product line. Everything in the product is and can be done from the Virtual Center Client. The client is free with every version of the product so there's no extra cost for using it. In addition, you were incorrect about needing the CLI in order to add network or storage devices. Both of those are in the GUI and have been since VMware ESX 1.5 (2002). Here are links to the manuals with pictures in case you need a refresher before posting a more accurate article: http://www.vmware.com/support/pubs/vi_pages/vi_pubs_35.html. Here's the part on networking: http://pubs.vmware.com/vi35/server_config/sc_networking.5.6.html. Here's the part on storage: http://pubs.vmware.com/vi35/server_config/sc_storage.10.1.html. Lastly, we have tens of thousands of installations in Microsoft only shops and those customers have had no issues installing or managing VMware for the past 9 years.

“The Hyper-V virtualization role can be installed on either a full Server 2008 installation or on a minimal Server Core installation. Server Core is the better choice for a virtualization server host because it has all the extraneous Windows components stripped out (e.g., the graphical shell, Internet Explorer—IE, Outlook). This bare-metal approach gives Server Core less overhead and makes it more efficient. Server Core is also more secure because of the reduced attack surface area, as well as more reliable because of the smaller number of components that might need patching.” Server Core may be less than a full installation but at the current RC1 release of Hyper-V an install of Hyper-V plus the required Server Core installation runs 3.99 GB. That’s not a typo. That’s still a HUGE trusted computing base when you compare it to 32 MB for ESXi or even 1.8 GB for a full ESX install. Microsoft may claim that VMware is a large, monolithic hypervisor because of where we put the drivers but 32 MB still seems pretty compact compared to the 3.99 GB of a minimal Hyper-V install.

I suspect he already knows all of this. Ignorance alone wouldn't be able to explain the bias of this article. He or this magazine must be in bed with Microsoft.

I found this article to have many incorrect statements, highlighted by others. obviously you have not kept up to date with product releases such as ESXi. So really destroys the credibility of this article as a PR release on behalf of microsoft. From the title, I was hoping this article would be so much more. dissapointing to say the least.

What if we are a non-profit charity and the MS software is free for us? I'm working on a grant proposal and am trying to decide if I need to put in VMware or just go for more hardware, like blade servers we'll need, etc., and just use Hyper V.

A very poor article to say the least Mr. Otey and like the other subscribers that have commented on your article, I believe that you obviously did not do your “homework” when it comes to VMWare and ESX server side of things. The proof is in the “Puddin” as they say so as a test, why not just pull the plug on that “Windows hyper-V” server box and then tell us how many VM’s you have running after doing so! DLM

There is so much in-correct information in the article, that one has to wonder how much Microsoft had in-put into this article. I am just amazed at all the in-correct information and bias leading you towards the OS Giant Microsoft. What does it take to get a true non-bias comparison?

This is a terrible article. Half the information in it is flat out wrong, the other is dripping in M$ bias. VMWare's products aren't perfect, but they're a hell of a lot faster, easier to manage, more flexible and more stable than Hyper-V. Harping on the third party drivers is just idiotic. The drivers are there because they allow DIRECT ACCESS TO THE HARDWARE!!! Hyper-V can't even come CLOSE to the speed ESX operates at because underneath it all, it's still an OS with call handling and translation, and that mechanism inherently limits the speed it can operate at. Microsoft will never have a serious competitor to VMWare.

Who has actually installed and worked with Hyper-V ...? I can admit - I have Who cares about the hypervisor architecture .. I don't ..and the CXOs we deal with neither. What count's ..? Advanced enablent functionality... . So is Hyper-V any good ... yes, it does it's job. Can you compare it with VI3 - absolutely not. Why do people love VMware...? 1) Ease of use 2) Integrated functionality .. So, does Hyper-V have life migration or integrated HA ... ? Think about your answer ... As the answer is NO ... Do you know that you have to have one LUN per vm in order to have individuall "quick" migration? Do you know that you need full blown MS clustering in order to have either vm migration or failover? Do you know that virtual machine clustering with Hyper-V is just as stateless as VMware HA but far more complex to install...? So live migration...no, HA ... yes but not working yet and complex, DRS... don't even think about it unless using powershell scripting ... Again, the hypervisor works well and I expect it to be competitive soon-ish but don't make the mistake and compare it to VI3 for business implementations yet!

Wow Michael you really did drink the MS marketing Kool-Aid. Pointing out the text based install and Linux CLI of ESX is ridiculous to say the least. Especially since the default installation of ESX is through a GUI and at the end of the install, you're pointed to a URL that provides the Virtual Infrastructure Client. It was obvious you were looking to point out deficiencies in VMware's offering. I won't spend additional time calling out the lack of knowledge Michael has in regards to management of VM's, drivers, hypervisor size, security, etc... I hope Michael takes a more unbiased approach in part 2 and covers some additional topics. I doubt it based on what I've read thus far. 1. Cost analysis is too much to comment on properly but I hope you make a better attempt in part 2. When you consider the amount of hardware required to run the same number of VM's, with VMware's higher density ratio, you end up with a smaller number of physical servers. Couple with the reduced hardware footprint in a datacenter, power/cooling, reduced mgmt cost, better SLA, etc... VMware easily provides a better financial model. Though VMware seems more expensive, you can easily quantify the savings simply based on the amount of money spent on hardware supporting the same number of Virtual Machines. 2. Management complexity-If you really want to talk feature parity, MS requies other System Center components(different interfaces) and aditional Databases for managing the entire virtual environment(again cost associated). 3. Implication of downtime. When the parent partition is patched in Hyper-V all VM's must also have downtime. The MS failover solution=downtime. The greater the amount of memory in a Virtual Machine, the greater the downtime with Hyper-V. Since most Tier 1 and mission critical apps have greater memory rquirements, you are looking at larger amounts of downtime for your most critical applications. Doesn't sound like a enterprise class solution to me.

The author seems to be either a) biased for Microsoft or b) did not get all his facts straight on VMware ESX. As many other people posted there are several glaring inacuracies in his article.

Michael, this has to be one of the incorrectly researched and worst written articles I have ever read in this magazine. Seriously pathetic comparison between the two products. This is just FUD. Pathetic article. I can't believe I wasted the time reading it. The editor should be questioned for letting it go to print in the first place as well. David

I am not able to believe my eyes, that someone could be so irresponsible in giving so much mis-information to thousands of readers. This is simply unacceptable. I think the author has to re-publish a corrected article to keep his and the magazines reputation intact. Shouldn't the authors be accountable for what they write? How could someone print it without having any facts in hand. People reading this article online can easily understand, but what about the thousands of mis-informed readers of physical magazine? How would they know that they have read all twisted facts. If the author is allowed to get away with this, without any corrections to the article, it would show how much pro MS this mag is. I hope the author and the mag do something about it.

Anyone reading this article should check this out. http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/06/theres-fud-and.html

It is frustrating to find articles that are full of inaccuracies being presented in a journal that is subsciber paid for content.

Thanks, readers, for taking the time to give us your feedback on Michael Otey's article. It definitely seems to have struck a nerve with some of you. :-) Michael intends to post an update to the article to address some of the issues raised in your comments. Also, stay tuned for "Virtualization Shootout, Part 2," coming soon.

AnneG We look forward to reading the next part. I hope you can convince us that you are not pandering to Micorosoft. VMWare has been around for a long time, we know it, what it does, how it behaves. You don't steal market share by writing articles like this. You undermine yourselves, Microsoft too. Microsoft has to earn its place in this market, so do you. No subscription from me.

Not up to the usual quality that I expect from Windows IT Pro. http://virtualgeek.typepad.com/virtual_geek/2008/06/theres-fud-and.html

This article is a joke and the editors of this magazine should be embarrassed to have even published this let alone have it as the cover story. Anyone basic IT person that has touched ESX over the past 7 years can tell that the author knows little to nothing about VMware ESX and is using this article as a platform to falsely promote Hyper-V. He tried to be cleaver in his approach by only discussing ESX vs Hyper-V leaving out all the VI3 modules that make VMware what it is today. But I’ll play that game… let just compare the two and also lets say for the sake of allowing people to have opinions that everything in the article is correct (even if we all know most every statement is false). And besides most of the posting have already pointed out where Mr. Otey has gone off his reservation. But I want to mention the one difference that he fails to mention throughout this entire article and its actually part of the basic ESX installation and that is the VMFS file system. We can talk all about the modules like VMotion , DRS, HA… none of them can happen without the VMware written VMFS file system. And that is why Hyper-V will never compete on an enterprise level (so the comment of them being is a “dead heat” is the real joke of the article). Hyper-V using NTFS which we all know means only one physical server can communicate with the volume at a time. This is and always will be the limiting factory with Hyper-V until Microsoft create a like product to allow multiple host to share a volume, like VMFS has done for years now, Hyper-V will be nothing more than marketing hype (by inexperienced and bias IT professionals) and a workstation product. Anyone selecting Hyper-V over VI3 of a datacenter deployment for production/mission critical applications is just not looking at the solutions with an objective mind. Mr.Otey I’m looking forward to reading part two and seeing how you’re going to make Hyper-V perform better they ESX, which you lead onto at the ending of the article.

AnneG- I suppose you are doing your job and selling magazines by printing this trash. I think the readers have responded accordingly to the quality of reporting by Mr. Otey. Is the role of the editor of the magazine to verify facts before allowing something to go to print? I am looking forward to part 2 and the reprint of part 1 that corrects ALL of the inaccuracies that Michael has stated. I am not a subsciber of Windows IT Pro and based on this article, I don't see myself being one in the near future.