Scott Lowe recently did a feature comparison between Microsoft Hyper-V R2 and VMware vSphere. The comparison is definitely worth taking a look at. Here is a tabular summary of the comparison:

In September 2008, VKernel announced its plans to deliver support for Microsoft Hyper-V in Q1 2009 in VKernel Capacity Analyzer and VKernel Chargeback. Fifteen months after its announcement and nine months after its scheduled delivery date, VKernel finally launched a beta version of only its Capacity Analyzer with support for Hyper-V.

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?

On November 10, 2009 Lanamark announced Lanamark Suite 2009 R2. The new release dramatically extends scalability to 50,000 systems and adds support for the latest OS and virtualization platforms, including: Citrix XenServer 5.5, Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V, Microsoft Windows 7, VMware vSphere 4.0 and VMware vCenter. Lanamark also introduces aggressive pricing for virtual machines and enhances the Lanamark Storage Design Module to provide deep insight into current and historical usage of local and networked storage resources.

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.

Read the official press release

Learn more about what's new in Lanamark Suite 2009 R2

As speculation looms around plans from Citrix to release Citrix XenServer as open source, it's worthwhile to analyze how such a move would impact other leading software vendors in the virtualization space.

On February 23, 2009 Citrix announced that it will give away the full version of Citrix XenServer for free. Since Citrix is not generating any revenue from XenServer, open sourcing it seems like a logical step. But how will such a move impact the marketplace? Why would Citrix spend $500M on XenSource and then make Citrix XenServer open source?

As a Microsoft partner, Citrix understands that it's better to cooperate than to compete with the software giant, particularly in the server virtualization space. By open-sourcing Citrix XenServer, Citrix would:

1. Expand Citrix XenServer market share and drive additional revenue through virtualization management software such as Citrix Essentials.
2. Offer enterprises an open-source alternative to Microsoft Hyper-V with feature parity and high degree of interoperability.
3. Increase community-based support for development and maintenance of Citrix XenServer, rather than funding R&D completely.
4. Enhance adoption and survivability of Citrix XenServer by getting other software vendors such as Novell and Oracle to support it.

Microsoft

Microsoft benefits the most from this move because there would be an open-source server virtualization alternative that would isolate two other Linux-based virtualization platform vendors: Red Hat and VMware. In other words, Microsoft is squeezing these vendors from one side with Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V and from the other side with the help of Citrix XenServer.

Novell

As a company that already has good relationships with both Citrix and Microsoft, Novell has an opportunity to provide virtualization management capabilities across these two platforms. It already does this with the PlateSpin family of products. Novell may also do a port of Citrix XenServer to Novell SUSE but this is probably not a trivial effort and would take quite a bit of time.

Oracle

Oracle VM is already based on the Xen hypervisor. Whether Oracle decides to adopt Citrix XenServer depends on whether Oracle wants to give away its intellectual property to the open source community or to build dominance in the server virtualization space on its own. However, given its active participation in the Xen community, support for open source development model and antagonism towards Red Hat, Oracle may just throw its weight behind an open source Citrix XenServer.

In a nutshell Citrix, Microsoft, Novell and Oracle have a lot to gain from an open source Citrix XenServer, while Red Hat and VMware have a lot to lose from such a move. Perhaps Citrix will also rename Citrix XenServer back to XenSource Server?!

Update (November 2, 2009)

According to an interview with Simon Crosby, CTO at Citrix, XenServer will be open-sourced but the following components will not be:

• Citrix XenCenter
• Citrix XenConvert
• Drivers for Microsoft Windows

To provide enterprises with virtualization management capabilities, Citrix offers Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V in Enterprise and Platinum editions. What's interesting is that the pricing for the Hyper-V version is actually cheaper than it is for the XenServer version. In essence, Citrix is incentivizing customers to go with Hyper-V.

As of October 22, 2009 the per-server pricing is as follows:

• Citrix Essentials for XenServer, Enterprise Edition: $2,750 USD
• Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Enterprise Edition: $1,650 USD
• Citrix Essentials for XenServer, Platinum Edition: $5,500 USD
• Citrix Essentials for Hyper-V, Platinum Edition: $3,300 USD

In a nutshell, Citrix Essentials is

• $1,100 more expensive per physical server running XenServer for the Enterprise Edition
• $2,200 more expensive per physical server running XenServer for the Platinum Edition

  What's even more interesting is that Citrix even offers a free Citrix Essentials Express Edition for Hyper-V but not for XenServer.

Regardless of the underlying platform selected, Lanamark Suite supports virtual infrastructure solution design (including licensing calculations) for both Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V. Citrix Essentials in Enterprise and Platinum Editions as well as Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager can be included in the what-if scenarios presented to enterprise customers by Lanamark partners.

Today VMware announced VMware vCenter CapacityIQ 1.0, a capacity management product for virtual infrastructure. The new product is rough around the edges. For example it still does not support VMware vSphere (VMware should have a policy for not launching new products that do not support its latest platform) nor does it provide enough emphasis on storage capacity planning.

In a nutshell, VMware CapacityIQ allows customers to reduce costs by right-sizing resources allocated to virtual machines. It also helps customers model the effect of capacity changes and forecast future capacity needs.

One particular company that will be severely impacted by VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is VKernel. At present, all VKernel products only work with VMware ESX and VMware vSphere, putting the company in a bit of a vice until support for other platforms is added. Each major VMware vCenter CapacityIQ feature competes with a product offered by VKernel:

• Capacity Awareness competes with VKernel Capacity Analyzer
• Capacity Optimization competes with VKernel Optimization Pack
• Capacity Prediction competes with VKernel Modeler

While VMware vCenter CapacityIQ is a fairly new product, it does have a critical mass of capabilities to spell trouble for VKernel and any other vendor offering capacity management software to the enterprise on top of the VMware platform. VKernel does seem to have a superset of capabilities available in VMware CapacityIQ such as support for vSphere, but it's just a matter of time before VMware closes the necessary product gaps.

VKernel announced its plans to support other platforms such as Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V later this year. Now the pressure is on VKernel to deliver.

Update (October 21, 2009)

David Marshall wrote the VMware tries its hand at capacity planning article on InfoWorld, quoting Alex Bakman, CEO of VKernel, saying "CapacityIQ may be good enough for some but our Capacity Analyzer and Optimization Pack provides many more features and functionality and delivers our users the answers and actionable information to make them successful in managing and optimizing their environments."

Indeed, VKernel does have more capacity management capabilities - after all, this is all VKernel has been focused on as a company for the last two years. As much as Alex would like to "thank VMware for validating the market need for capacity planning, management, and optimization," VMware is going to sell CapacityIQ as part of a complete vCenter stack and injecting a third-party (VKernel) appliance will not be an easy sell. Even if VKernel manages to get into the sales cycle and go up against CapacityIQ, the sales cycles will become longer and more expensive - not particularly favorable for a startup.

Update (November 9, 2009)

David Marshall followed up with another article on VKernel, detailing how VKernel is making Capacity Modeler free until December 31, 2009 in response to VMware CapacityIQ. VKernel Capacity Modeler 1.0 was released on March 31, 2009 with pricing starting at $199 per CPU socket.

The move only validates the frustration VKernel must be experiencing as it starts to see VMware in its sales cycles. And no matter how much VKernel and other vendors discount VMware CapacityIQ, the product is obviously "good enough" to force VKernel to go on the defensive. It's ironic that VKernel initially discounted VMware's offering and then actually had to discount its own.

With the launch of Parallels Server Bare Metal, Parallels is expanding its value proposition in the crowded virtualization marketplace. But how is its approach different from other virtualization vendors such as Citrix, Microsoft and VMware?

First, Parallels offers a differentiated approach to virtualization that includes both hardware virtualization with Parallels Server Bare Metal and OS virtualization with Parallels Virtuozzo Containers. When the OS environment is heterogeneous, Parallels Server Bare Metal provides flexibility for hosting workloads with different operating systems on the same physical server. This approach is similar to Citrix XenServer, Microsoft Hyper-V, Oracle VM and VMware vSphere. However when the OS environment is homogeneous, Parallels provides capabilities to consolidate workloads with much lower virtualization overhead and much higher consolidation ratios. This is particularly useful for desktop virtualization.

Second, Parallels is clearly positioning itself for cloud enablement. Changes in messaging from "Automation and virtualization leader" to "Cloud enablement leader" clearly speak to that. And while other vendors are getting ready for cloud adoption, Parallels is already there with major market and mind share from service providers. Starting from its position of strength, Parallels can now go to all its partners using Parallels Virtuozzo Containers and help them expand their value proposition to customers with the addition of Parallels Server Bare Metal.

Finally, Parallels provides Parallels Virtual Automation for comprehensive management of both physical and virtual environments. Because of its strong expertise in enabling services providers, these capabilities push self-service and automation to levels that dramatically reduce the cost of implementing and managing virtual infrastructure.

In the last six years, leading vendors made significant investments to capitalize on opportunities presented by virtualization technologies:

• EMC acquired VMware in 2003 for $635 million
• Citrix acquired XenSource in 2007 for $500 million
• Red Hat acquired Qumranet in 2008 for $107 million
• Oracle acquired Virtual Iron in 2009 and is finalizing acquisition of Sun Microsystems

Now the big question is, who else wants to have a strong play in the virtualization and the cloud space?

Regardless of what happens, Lanamark Suite will enable the IT channel to design and deliver desktop and server virtualization solutions across all the leading virtualization platforms.

As Microsoft gets ready to rollout Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V R2 on October 22nd, it's clear that a new wave of competition is about to begin between Microsoft and VMware. While VMware still holds a dominant position in the virtualization market, platform feature gaps, such as lack of live migration, are being closed in the R2 release.

With VMware software licensing revenues already declining 20% over the past year, the question is how will the new release from Microsoft affect VMware's ability to drive VMware vSphere sales? Will VMware respond to Microsoft at VMworld 2009 by slashing prices on vSphere or will it continue to try and charge a premium in this challenging macroeconomic climate?

More and more Lanamark partners are being asked by customers to provide side-by-side comparisons across leading virtualization platforms. The Windows Server 2008 R2 release is only going to amplify the need for solution providers to present multiple virtualization platform options to enterprise customers.

With Lanamark Suite, our partners can do just that by offering vendor-agnostic desktop virtualization, server virtualization and storage solutions to customers rather than locking them into specific vendor solutions by using vendor-centric tools such as VMware Capacity Planner.

With VMware continuing to dominate the marketplace and other competitors emerging, Microsoft is skillfully playing virtualization chess. How can Microsoft build a dominant position in the virtualization marketplace while showing goodwill towards the Linux community and completely isolating its competitors? Here is how

1. Provide (selective) support for Linux. Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server is the only Linux distribution officially supported by Microsoft Hyper-V.
2. Offer an alternative virtualization platform for enterprises using Linux that is interoperable with Hyper-V. This is where Citrix XenServer comes in, partially because it provides much broader support for Linux guest operating systems.
3. Build virtualization management applications that span the two. This is where management applications such as Citrix Essentials for XenServer and Hyper-V come in. Microsoft System Center and Novell PlateSpin family of products will also provide cross-platform support.

To maximize its grip over the virtualization marketplace, Microsoft wants customers to choose between a Linux- and a Windows-based hypervisor that it endorses and supports. The strategy code looks like something this:

if customer(running primarily Windows & wants Windows-based hypervisor) then return Microsoft Hyper-V + Microsoft Windows Server

else if customer(running primarily Linux & wants Linux-based hypervisor) then return Citrix XenServer + Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server

else return Microsoft Hyper-V + Microsoft Windows Server

This approach gives customers choice and essentially isolates all the other Linux-based virtualization platform vendors: Red Hat, VMware, etc... This approach is also sound from an anti-trust perspective because it would ensure that Microsoft is not perceived as a monopoly in the virtualization space a few years from now.

Here is the comparison of licensing and pricing for VMware vSphere announced on April 21, 2009 versus VMware Infrastructure 3.

• $995 for 3 servers OR $165 per processor
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Foundation Acceleration Kit: $2,995 for 3 servers
• Savings: $2,000 (67%)

Essentials Plus ($2,995 for 3 servers)

• $2,995 for 3 servers OR $499 per processor
• Includes High Availability and Data Protection
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard High Availability Acceleration Kit: $5,995 for two 2-processor nodes
• Savings: $3,000 + $2,995 for VI Standard + $2,495 for VI HA Add-on = $8,490 (74%)

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Standard ($795 per processor)

• Up to 6 cores per processor
• Includes High Availability and Thin Provisioning
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard: $2,995 for two 2-processor nodes
• Savings: $1,405 per 2 processors (47%)

Advanced ($2,245 per processor)

• Up to 12 cores per processor
• Standard Edition + Availability (Live Migration, Continuous Availability, Network Security Zoning, Data Protection)
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Standard: $2,995 for two 2-processor nodes plus features above 
• Price Difference: $1,495 per 2 processors (50%) for features in the Availability package

Enterprise ($2,875 per processor)

• Up to 6 cores per processor
• Advanced Edition + Automated Resource Management (Dynamic Resource Allocation, Power Management, Storage Live Migration)
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Enterprise: $5,750 for two 2-processor nodes
• No price change per 2-processor nodes

Enterprise Plus ($3,495 per processor)

• Up to 12 cores per processor
• Enterprise Edition + Simplified Operations (Third-party Multipathing, Distributed Switch, Host Configuration Controls)
• Closest ancestor: VMware Infrastructure Enterprise: $5,750 for two 2-processor nodes plus features above
• Price Difference: $1,240 for features in the Simplified Operations package

Overall it looks like VMware is making pricing more aggressive for SMBs where it has the most price pressure from the free Citrix XenServer Enterprise Edition and Microsoft Hyper-V. To learn more, please see the official VMware vSphere 4 Pricing, Packaging and Licensing Overview.