Virtual Discourse

Opinions, questions and thoughts on server virtualization - from Tony Asaro, Chief Strategy Officer at Virtual Iron.

Tony Asaro

The Hype in Hyper-V

Let me ask you a question: For those of you interested in Microsoft Hyper-V, how many of you are willing to convert to Microsoft Windows Server 2008? If you want to use Hyper-V, that’s exactly what you’ll have to do. Call me crazy, but I don't think there is going to be a stampede of people rushing to do this right away—certainly not for production environments. And when they do upgrade, it won't be for 100% of their servers, but rather bit-by-bit. History has shown that end-users have been very reluctant to implement new Microsoft platforms in stage 1.0 unless forced to do so.

Even more importantly, Hyper-V doesn't have the mobility, high availability, recoverability and load balancing capabilities that actually make server virtualization valuable to customers. Yes, it will provide server consolidation, but that is the easier part of server virtualization and for most customers, not where the real value is. Customers want to be able to move virtual servers between different physical servers online and transparently. They want failover capability and rapid recoverability. Hyper-V doesn't provide any of these capabilities in its 1.0 version and it’s not clear when it really will.

Additionally, I find it a bit of leap to believe that the majority of customers with mixed Windows and Linux environments will use Hyper-V for Linux. Even though Linux is supported by Hyper-V, it’s just not a natural fit. Look, Microsoft NAS supports NFS and I can tell you that while it’s a good product, people are using it for CIFS and not NFS. Sure, there might be a maverick or two using Microsoft for NFS, but it is truly the exception. I believe that will play out for Hyper-V and Linux environments as well. It's like a conservative Republican voting for Obama or Hillary—it's simply not going to happen all that often.

It is important to put things into perspective: Hyper-V is a new Microsoft technology that requires its new server platform; it has limited functionality and lacks core capabilities that a large number of customers are specifically looking for with server virtualization; and while Windows is the dominant OS, there is a big (and growing) Linux ecosystem that often co-exists within the same data center—and most customers are not going to use Hyper-V for Linux environments. Certainly, a large number of people will use Hyper-V on some level just because it’s Microsoft. But it isn't going to become pervasive for some time to come. The BIGGEST issue we have is educating people so that the HYPE around Hyper-V doesn't slow us or end users down.

del.icio.us | digg | StumbleUpon | reddit | Slashdot

Posted by Tony A. on April 16, 2008 5:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

← Virtualization Power, Cooling and Floor Space Impact | VMware Memory Overcommit = FUD →

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blog.virtualiron.com/mt/mt-tb.cgi/1651

Comments (3)

Daniele Vistalli:

I agree with your analysis but this is just the beginning.

At this time I see hardware vendors endorsing VMWare (because it's king of the hill) and Hyper-V (because it's microsoft).

They privately agree that Hyper-V is not going to be the killer app but even analysts says that Hyper-V is going to steal some marketshare from others.

Nobody at this time wanted to answer me on a pretty simple topic. How do you handle windows updates in an Hyper-V enviroment, do you restart your complete virtualization infrastructure, do you disable updates. And what's the performance of virtual disks stored in NTFS ?

There's a lot of practical questions that everybody attempts to avoid. But to me it seems that Hyper-V will sell a lot of course but the real adoption will be limited, at least for the first year of it's life.

Posted by Daniele Vistalli | April 20, 2008 2:13 PM

Posted on April 20, 2008 14:13

Tony Asaro:

Daniele,

Yes - there are a number of unknowns and fundamental questions that are yet to be answered. And I agree that Microsoft will get market share as a default - because they are a giant - but that will not tell the real story. Today Microsoft has a number of server virtualization customers but once you look beyond the covers much of it is for limited and non-production deployments.

As you state - you believe it will be at least a year for real adoption - and we all know that one year easily turns into two and maybe even three.

Certainly, I am interested in VI being successful and the slower Microsoft gets to market the better off we are. Having said that -there are real market considerations with any new product - and I must say we've seen these things painfully played out before with Microsoft. There is no reason in the world to assume that Hyper-V will be the bee's knees for some time to come. That is why understanding the reality and getting passed the hype is essential.

Posted by Tony Asaro | April 21, 2008 4:10 PM

Posted on April 21, 2008 16:10

mrvirtualization:

Hi,

What make Hyper-V even worse, is how difficult and time wasting to run Linux with acceptable performance on it. If you just give a look at http://www.itcomparison.com/blg/?p=11 which describe how to install SUSE Linux 10 SP1 on hyper-v in brief you will discover how much pain you have to go into doing so. I hope that will warn you before you go deep in it.

Enjoy,
mrvirtualizaiton

Posted by mrvirtualization | May 22, 2008 6:05 AM

Posted on May 22, 2008 06:05