VKernel just saw a battle card from VMware comparing VMware CapacityIQ to the VKernel portfolio of products and was devastated to learn that VMware is aggressively positioning its offering against that of VKernel. Although this may come as a surprise to VKernel, VMware is interested in selling a complete virtualization stack which includes capacity management. And there is no point to complain about it. To compete on the VMware platform against VMware is extremely difficult, so there are several strategies:

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.

VMware recently published an interesting blog article on how to use VMware vCenter CapacityIQ to right-size VMs. The article highlights that capacity planning in a virtual environment is much more complex than in a physical environment due to shared resources, VM migrations and other factors. It also shows depth of thinking from the VMware product team building VMware vCenter CapacityIQ.

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.

VKernel just released a free tool called VKernel AppVIEW, an "extremely powerful tool to monitor, diagnose, and resolve capacity bottlenecks in application virtual machines." What's misleading about the name of this tool is that it doesn't actually profile applications. Instead, it profiles virtual machines using basic metrics.

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.

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?