1. Diversify virtualization platform support
Besides VMware, there are many other vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle and Parallels offering competitive virtualization solutions. These vendors provide ISV partners with more opportunities to offer complimentary solutions. However, given that VMware is still the leader in the virtualization space, supporting the VMware platform is essential even if it means having some overlap with the platform vendor.
2. Find whitespace in the VMware management stack
This is becoming very challenging since VMware is determined to provide a complete management stack for its platform - there is very little whitespace for partners. VMware is not moving up the stack just to grow revenues - it is also doing so to sustain revenues since the hypervisor is a commodity.
3. Innovate and differentiate
VMware is a massive company with significant resources behind its products. There is no point competing with brute force sales and marketing against VMware - this battle is over before it even starts. VKernel is just burning its precious venture capital trying to do so. Instead, it's critical to innovate more quickly and build differentiated offerings that go beyond what VMware is able to deliver. And to do so in a sustainable fashion.
VKernel is simply witnessing standard competitive pressures from a platform vendor. There is no surprise that VMware is showing prospects side-by-side comparisons versus VKernel. One of these battle cards probably exists for just about every vendor that has overlap with VMware.
So what have we done at Lanamark? First, Lanamark diversified and started supporting all the leading platforms, not just VMware. We are working with Citrix, Microsoft, Oracle, Parallels and VMware partners who are delivering desktop and data center optimization (and virtualization) solutions and services. Second, Lanamark provides unified instrumentation, analytics and system design capabilities that span across applications, users, workloads and the underlying IT infrastructure (both physical and virtual, from the desktop to the data center). Finally, Lanamark is innovating at a much faster pace than the team responsible for VMware Capacity Planner, providing VMware partners with unprecedented ability to accelerate design and delivery of optimized VMware solutions.
VMware partners world-wide continue to choose Lanamark Suite because Lanamark provides superior product capabilities, better field support and unparalleled responsiveness to feedback from both customers and partners. Lanamark is not feeling the love from VMware but we are certainly feeling the love from VMware partners, customers and prospects using our products every day to design and optimize VMware data centers.
]]>While vendors such as VKernel have dismissed VMware vCenter CapacityIQ as an inferior product, that certainly does not seem to be the case. It's also clear that all virtualization vendors will need to have capacity planning in their arsenal if they want to compete effectively with the expanding VMware management stack.
Our view at Lanamark is that capacity management will ultimately be delivered as a service and hence why Lanamark is focused on enabling IT solution providers delivering desktop and data center optimization services, rather than trying to sell its products directly to enterprises, or competing with partners by bundling services.
]]>And of course Liquidware Labs claims "agent-free design - no software to install, zero resources used" when in reality it continues to use agents. In a recent video, Tyler Rohrer decided to call the Stratusphere agent "virtual agent" rather than completely misleading the audience.
Update (June 25, 2010)
After this blog post went live, Liquidware Labs promptly added "The offering provides for optional integration services from our partner community to help guide your overall project to success." to the desciption of Liquidware Labs Jumpstart. What's interesting is the "optional integration services" statement for an offering Liquidware Labs describes as "Software + Integration Services." The question still stands - does Liquidware Labs deliver services and compete or does it always engage services partners?
]]>"To get started with an assessment, the administrator simply applies the Stratusphere module to selected user(s) through a straight-forward Microsoft Group Policy Setting. Stratusphere then runs silently on the chosen desktops, quietly gathering usage data and performance metrics..." David Bieneman underscores the "new agent-less desktop design..." towards the end of the press release.
In contrast, Alessandro accurately explained in his blog that Liquidware Labs Stratusphere "monitors users by attaching a stealth agent to their Microsoft Active Directory account through Group Policy."
Despite the agent being tied to users through Group Policy, it doesn't change the fact that a module "runs silently on chosen desktops." Obviously Liquidware Labs improved its agent deployment capability, but it is misleading to suggest that Stratusphere is using an agent-less approach.
When David and Tyler launched Liquidware Labs a year ago, we assumed that the lack of ethics only applies to competitors since our legal counsel had to send a letter to David Bieneman and request that "Lanamark Copyrighted Material be removed and destroyed on or before May 31, 2009" after Liquidware Labs decided to copy portions of the Lanamark website (Liquidware Labs promptly complied). In our opinion the high ethical standards seem to apply to Liquidware Labs customers and partners as well.
]]>The challenge with profiling applications is that the data collector must look at workloads running inside virtual machines. And since this is something VKernel cannot do (yet), it decided to incorrectly use the term "application virtual machines", which refers to a virtual machine hosting an application, not an entire operating system workload as is the case with hardware virtualization.
The big question is why would someone want to get performance metrics on 5 of their VMs (AppVIEW limit) when they can get performance metrics on all VMs using tools provided by virtualization vendors?!
In contrast, what VKernel claims it can do, is exactly what Lanamark does today - provides a unified view of applications, users, workloads and the underlying IT (both physical and virtual) infrastructure.
]]>Many thanks to all customers and partners who pushed the boundaries of innovation at Lanamark and provided ongoing product feedback, reviews and field validation.
]]>Lanamark Suite enables Oracle partners to accelerate design and delivery of Oracle VM virtualization solutions. Solution providers can gather vital information about x86/x64 and SPARC environments, identify most suitable candidates for virtualization, and then design complete, high-performance virtualization solutions with Oracle VM. Lanamark Suite supports application, middleware, database, operating system, server, storage and thin client components from Oracle and Oracle alliance partners.
Learn more about the partnership between Lanamark and Oracle.
]]>Professional Services Edition
Lanamark Suite Professional Services Edition enables solution providers to deliver project-based assessment, planning and design services across desktops, servers and storage. It facilitates delivery of the following solutions and services:
Managed Services Edition
Lanamark Suite Managed Services Edition enables solution providers to deliver subscription-based capacity management and optimization services across physical and virtual infrastructure. It facilitates delivery of the following solutions and services:
Rather than resell complex capacity planning software such as Novell PlateSpin Recon, solution providers can instead deliver capacity planning and optimization as a service. This allows customers to focus on their core business rather than purchase expensive software and maintain in-house expertise for using it.
]]>
Unlike its first-class support for VMware ESX, where it now faces competition from VMware vCenter CapacityIQ and VMware vCenter Chargeback, VKernel's support for Hyper-V has the following limitations and requirements:
1. Breaking of Virtual Appliance Encapsulation
VKernel Capacity Analyzer cannot work with Hyper-V without a new VKernel Capacity Analyzer Hyper-V Collector agent and a shared Microsoft SQL Server database. Because this agent and the database must run on Microsoft Windows, neither one can be deployed within the Linux-based virtual appliance running VKernel Capacity Analyzer.
2. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 Requirement
While many Microsoft customers are using Microsoft System Center Operations Manager, making it a system requirement for running a virtual appliance is going to be an issue for some customers.
3. Microsoft System Center Operations Manager must be integrated with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager
According to the user guide, VKernel Capacity Analyzer not only requires Microsoft System Center Operations Manager R2, but Operations Manager must also be integrated with Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008. Again, this is a feasible configuration but not a trivial requirement for a virtual appliance that should be self-contained.
4. Microsoft SQL Server Requirement
Instead of pulling data into its own database, VKernel Capacity Analyzer now requires Microsoft SQL Server database to be shared between the VKernel Capacity Analyzer and the VKernel Capacity Analyzer Hyper-V Collector agent.
These limitations and requirements raise the following questions:
1. Why do enterprises running Microsoft Hyper-V have to be burdened with additional system requirements for running VKernel Capacity Analyzer compared to enterprises running VMware ESX?
2. Why can't VKernel Capacity Analyzer simply run as a self-contained virtual appliance on Microsoft Hyper-V and collect data directly from Microsoft Hyper-V hosts without additional requirements for systems management and commercial database products?
3. How much additional value would enterprises actually get from VKernel Capacity Analyzer if they are already running Microsoft System Center Operations Manager and Virtual Machine Manager?
]]>Our partnership further validates our value proposition to the IT channel around design and delivery of application virtualization, desktop virtualization, server virtualization and storage solutions. To excel in the highly competitive virtualization services marketplace, solution providers need to be armed with the best sales and service delivery tools and to provide customers with cross-vendor solutions. Lanamark Suite enables our partners set themselves apart and deliver highly optimized, enterprise-class virtualization solutions across leading virtualization platforms.
]]>Price Comparison
Examples
To take full advantage of VMware vSphere Enterprise six-core licensing limit, it may be worthwhile to consider the following servers with six-core AMD and Intel processors to maximize VM density:
With AMD Opteron 24xx or 84xx SeriesOf course software licensing costs are only a component of the total cost of ownership and a number of other factors such as performance and management applications available must be considered when choosing a virtualization platform. This is exactly what solution providers using Lanamark Suite try to accomplish when presenting enterprise customers with side-by-side comparisons across end-to-end virtualization solutions that encompass hardware, software and service components.
]]>The new release is a culmination of more than nine months of close collaboration with our alliance and channel partners. Many thanks to everyone who helped us push the envelope of innovation and deliver a world-class product.
]]>|
| ||
| Oracle | Red Hat | |
| Packaging | Oracle VM comes with the Oracle VM Manager management console | Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Hypervisor (REVH) comes with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization Manager for Servers management console (REVMS) |
| Licensing | Free to download, use and re-distribute both Oracle VM (GPL) and Oracle VM Manager (private source) | Subscription |
| Pricing / Year (USD) | $599 for 24x7 support per server with up to 2 sockets $1,199 for 24x7 support per server with unlimited sockets |
$499 subscription for 12x5 support per socket $749 subscription for 24x7 support per socket |
| Hypervisor | Xen 3.4 in Oracle VM 2.2 (Xen is also used by Citrix, Novell and other ISVs) | KVM (through acquisition of Qumranet) |
| Supported Operating Systems | Microsoft Windows 2000, 2003, 2008, XP, Vista Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.x, 4.x and 5.x Oracle Enterprise Linux 4.x and 5.x |
Microsoft Windows 2003, 2008, XP Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.x, 4.x and 5.x |
|
| ||
As part of the launch, Red Hat did a comparison of its virtualization offering versus ones from Microsoft and VMware. In reality, the closest competitors are actually Citrix and Oracle, especially if Citrix does indeed release Citrix XenServer as open source. This means that both Red Hat and VMware would get squeezed by
What's more interesting is that Red Hat pitches its offering for "heterogeneous servers and clouds." With a subscription-based licensing model and without a freely downloadable, re-distributable software, this strategy is going to be rather challenging to execute.
]]>