It's good to talk..

Thanks for your comments on my last post.  I've commented myself, but just in case you aren't reading the comments - here's my reply to Kim:

So https://itcomparison.com/Virtualization/MShypervvsvi35/HyperVvsvmware35esx.htm is a great comparison of a production product (VMware) and a beta (Hyper-V). So it's kind of like comparing apples with oranges?

I'd have to agree on the naming comment (I do not like Hyper-V)!

Of course Hyper-V is targeted at test and development (at the moment) - it's a beta!

Of course System Centre VMM doesn't manage Hyper-V (yet) - it's still a beta!

Of course we don't support many OS's on Hyper-V (yet) - it's a beta! Go look at the supported guests for our production offering (Virtual Server).

Performance is an interesting one - what is performance? How do you measure it? Is the number of guests the real measure? We already support more guests per host on Virtual Server. Hyper-V is still in beta. Hyper-V’s hypervisor runs at ring -1 on the processors, which actually means the guests are all running at ring 0 (even closer to the metal than VMware)!

Live Migration vs. Quick Migration is always an interesting one. How many customers "really" need close to zero downtime? I don't come across many (most just need the services to be up and to have the ability to move that service). Quick Migration is quick (a few seconds). How much are those few seconds worth?

Booting from virtual SCSI disk - we already do that with Virtual Server. Hyper-V's virtual IDE and virtual SCSI are just synthetic device drivers - they are equally performant (i.e. this is irrelevant). What’s more important is the physical storage that we support (we support a lot more than VMware).

Backup Performance - Hyper-V is still in beta! Taking live snapshots of running machines is possible on both Virtual Server and Hyper-V in the box. Both System Centre Data Protection Manager and Virtual Machine Manager can initiate the snapshots too.

Special Hardware Requirement? Pretty much every server that's shipped in the last couple of years has been x64 - which means Hyper-V will run on pretty much every "modern" server. VMware can't say that - there is a very limited sub-set of hardware to choose from (because of the device drivers being in the hypervisor). We already run (and will do with Hyper-V) on any server with the “designed for Windows” logo (i.e. any server).

If you want to run a 32-bit host operating system, then use Virtual Server.

Thanks for your comments guys - it's good to talk!

Dave.