VMware Eyes Enterprise, Microsoft
With one eye on the enterprise and
another on Microsoft's virtualization bid, EMC’s VMware unit rolled out its
next-generation server virtualization and management platform today.
(See VMware Unveils New Suite.)
With VMware Infrastructure 3,
consisting of upgrades to ESX Server and VirtualCenter and new modules
integrated into several suites, VMware hopes to extend its market share lead
in server virtualization and convince customers that Microsoft’s impending
virtualization splash isn’t worth waiting for.
“We want to make virtualization
something that is pervasively employed throughout the enterprise,” says
Patrick Lin, VMware’s director of data centre products.
The additions include:
• Support for shared storage on
iSCSI and NAS. ESX Server 3 allows users to virtualize storage on IP-based
SAN and NAS systems. Previous ESX Server versions only supported Fibre
Channel SANs and attached storage.
• Virtual machines to four CPUs.
Previous versions scaled to two CPUs only.
• VMware Distributed Resource
Scheduling (DRS). This module lets users automatically move virtual machines
from overloaded servers to servers with extra capacity.
• VMware High Availability (HA).
This module eliminates single points of failure by moving virtual machines
from a failed server to other servers, where they are rebooted.
• VMware Consolidated Backup. This
module offloads backup to a centralized server, allowing the ESX Server to
run more virtual machines.
The new features are designed to
allow VMware’s VirtualCenter manage up to three times as many hosts and
virtual machines as the previous version.
At least one customer, though, says
DRS and iSCSI support are the most useful new features for him. "Resource
pooling is probably the best thing for me, Before I deployed a virtual
machine against a named host, so I had to pick one server. With DRS, I can
take multiple servers and group them as a farm. VMware will self-manage the
load and switch to another host better suited to run those servers."
An iSCSI initiator is preloaded into
the new version of VMware and searches the network for a target, making it
easier to provision software for IP SANs. ESX 3 also lets users store and
access virtual files on a NAS device. For now it only works with NFS. VMware
has no scheduled release for CIFS support.
VMware has also repackaged its
software to stress the management of resources across the enterprise, rather
than just to consolidate servers. Packages range from an entry-level
offering including ESX Server with local or NAS storage and management for
$1,000 for two processors to an enterprise package that includes all the new
features and add-on modules for $5,750 for two processors.
Analyst Gordon Haff of Illuminata
thinks the repackaging is key to this announcement. “This release is more
about repackaging the way that they will deliver their software than new
product features,” he says. “Although it isn't so much about new capability,
it's significant all the same. For example, the entry price for just ESX
Server plus Virtual Center has been significantly reduced. This will make it
much more financially attractive for enterprises to start building broader
virtualized infrastructures.”
VMware has dominated the server
virtualization market and has been the fastest growing product in EMC’s
arsenal since EMC acquired VMware in late 2003. But VMware faces a long-term
threat from Microsoft, which is planning a big push into virtualization.
Case in point: Virtualization was a
major theme at the Microsoft Windows Hardware Engineering Conference two
weeks ago and also the topic of Bill Gates’ keynote. Microsoft has acquired
application virtualization startup Softricity. The company plans to build
server virtualization into its coming Longhorn operating system and offer a
data centre virtualization product in late 2007.
The ability to build virtualization into its operating system makes
Microsoft the major threat to VMware’s early dominance in virtualization.
However, the timing of Microsoft’s roadmap is less than overwhelming.
“What Microsoft confirmed is that its
native virtualization won't be ready for a while,” Haff says.
Siles, a Softricity customer, thinks
Microsoft made a good move by buying the startup, but it still has a long
way to go. “Microsoft’s approach to virtualization is still a little off,”
he says. “Bill Gates said at WinHEC it would be 180 days after Longhorn
comes out and that’s a long way off in today’s world. I think Gates’
presentation was to stave off people from making their decision by telling
them Microsoft’s version is coming.”
Still, he believes Microsoft has a
chance to hurt VMware if it does it right. “If they give it away for free
with Longhorn and bake in support for virtualization that does a bare-metal
boot, then VMware would have to give ESX away and make their money with
professional services,” he explains. “But Microsoft’s virtualization is pie
in the sky for now.”
News item taken from
http://www.byteandswitch.com
