According to this article, cost and configuration issues are spurring at least one organization to ditch VMware ESX Server for Microsoft Virtual Server. Here’s a quote from the article:
Today, Quigley — a senior network engineer — told me that his firm, Total Quality Logistics, LLC, will be migrating over to Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 R2, over the next 45 days. TQL — up to now a VMware shop — will only use ESX in the lab. ESX is too expensive to upgrade and requires more training and resources than TQL can deliver, Quigley said.
So, let me see if I have this straight. Virtual Server, which is given away for free, is cheaper than ESX Server. Well, that seems fairly obvious—it’s hard to get any cheaper than free, isn’t it? So is it really possible to make a viable comparison between two products based on price when one product (Virtual Server) is given away for free because Microsoft makes all its money elsewhere (Windows), but the second product (ESX Server) costs money because it is one of VMware’s core products? Or do you have to consider other factors as well?
When it comes to comparing Virtual Server and ESX Server, Microsoft wants you to consider the price of Virtual Server (free) against ESX Server (not free). But when it comes to comparing Linux (free) and Windows (not free), Microsoft’s on the other end of the stick, and they want you to consider other factors—total cost of ownership, training, etc. So do we consider factors other than just cost, or not?
I think most everyone would agree that with regards to features, ESX Server (as part of a Virtual Infrastructure 3 implementation) clearly outshines Virtual Server. After all, Virtual Server doesn’t have VMotion (live migration), DRS, HA, resource pools, or any such features. With regards to cost, Virtual Server is as inexpensive as it comes. ESX Server wins on features, Virtual Server wins on cost.
In this case, we now need to consider the cost of administering or managing your virtualization solution. Some would say that Virtual Server is easier to manage than ESX Server. I guess that depends greatly upon who is managing the environment. I know of a VMware administrator who single-handedly manages 22 ESX Servers hosting more than 150 virtual machines. Would this administrator consider Virtual Server “easier to manage†than ESX Server? Probably not. On the other hand, a Windows system admin whose grown his/her career managing Windows boxes won’t find ESX Server as easy to manage as a Windows server. It’s really all a matter of experience and perspective.
So rather than taking this story and trying to tear it down, let’s recognize it for what it is. One organization evaluated Virtual Server and ESX Server based on the criteria important to that organization (cost and management), and felt that Virtual Server was the right choice for them. It won’t be the right choice for every organization, just as ESX Server isn’t the right choice for all organizations. And it’s not validation that Virtual Server is better than ESX Server, as the definition of “better†will change from organization to organization. For many organizations, the cost of VMware licenses are outweighed by the savings introduced by higher consolidation ratios and the enterprise-class feature set.
Personally, I think that most, if not all, of the issues that were described in that article could have been resolved with a correct configuration of ESX Server, but that’s just my personal opinion.
Tags: ESX, Microsoft, Virtualization, VMware
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Friday, June 15, 2007 at 4:46 am
VMzare
I agree with you fully, I wouldn’t even go further and compare these products. ESX is enterprize level product and It truly means Enterprize. Load,capacity and above all Stability. Above kind of innovation gone into GSX,ESX family will never let the product down. I’ve yet to see any ESX host PSOD because of VMKernel.
Friday, June 15, 2007 at 7:55 am
slowe
The only PSODs I’ve seen have always been due to hardware failure. Definitely better track record than Windows!
Friday, June 15, 2007 at 10:40 am
Denny
I wonder if they tried VMware Server. It is free and is much more functional than Virtual Server.
Saturday, June 16, 2007 at 8:16 pm
David Marshall
A few things… Virtual Server has its place. Is it everything to everyone? No. Will it suffice for many organizations? I think so. Is it as robust and feature rich as VMware ESX Server? No. Of course not. And I can’t believe that anyone would say otherwise. I’m sure even Microsoft would own up to that, after all, that’s why they are working on Windows Server Virtualization.
I have seen ESX Server PSOD, mostly because of hardware issues… but it has crashed on me for other reasons of heavy usage. Again, it crashes few and far between, but it certainly isn’t bullet proof.
VMware Server is free as well, and again, nowhere near the stability or resource allocation of ESX Server. Free… yes. I would also argue that it doesn’t scale as well as Virtual Server either. If you are running a few virtual machines on a server, VMware Server is fine. When you start loading it up, the performance drops faster than the other two platforms.
So it all comes back to what are you trying to do within your organization. Outside of cost, what are you hoping to accomplish with virtualization?
Saturday, June 16, 2007 at 11:05 pm
slowe
I agree, and that is the point I was trying to make. Virtual Server, VMware Server, and ESX Server all have their places within an overall virtualization solution–certain products are better in certain situations. My experience has shown that ESX Server fits well in many, many environments, but that is not to say it will fit equally well in ALL cases, and there are going to be situations where Virtual Server, VMware Server, or perhaps even Xen will make more sense. You can’t go solely on cost, and you can’t go solely on features. You have to look at the final solution and take all these factors into consideration.
Monday, June 18, 2007 at 9:41 am
Curtis
I don’t think that you can even compare Virtual Server to ESX. I agree that VMServer, Virtual Server, and ESX all have have different places in the grand scheme of things. VMServer or Virtual Server are great for small shops looking to dabble in virtualization. However I don’t think that the article about switching from ESX to Virtual Server is even close to being accurate. Nothing holds a candle to ESX, it’s not great for small shops that don’t need high performance out of their virtualization, but anything else I cannot see why you choose anything over ESX. IMO the only thing that comes close to ESX is Virtual Iron.
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 5:02 pm
Patrick
Admittedly I’m behind the time here, having just found Scott’s blog. I’ll be sure to visit more often.
I work with MS and have been involved with Virtual Server since before it launched. Since then the reason for buying Virtual Server instead of other server virtualization software has changed primarily because the supply of virtualization software has changed. The selection criteria has lengthened compared to 3 years ago. Today customers’s buying criteria includes: technology, integration, management (physical/virtual), skill set requirements, support, price, comprehensive roadmap, partners.
For Land O’Lakes, they compared ESX Server and Virtual Server against a weighted criteria of reliability (5), performance/scalability (4), supportability (3), fault tolerance (2), product/support costs (1). In the end, Virtual Server had a score of 71, and ESX Server scored 68. They also concluded that (their words, not mine): ESX Server has more functionality and less overhead; but, Virtual Server is mature/works, the roadmap meets future needs, pricing is attractive, stated support policy is more robust, their technical staff is more familiar with Microsoft technologies, and they believe virtualization will become part of the OS.
Citrix’s IT dept had a similar evaluation. They looked at device support, features, roadmap, skills, implementation costs, operational savings, business relationship, management integration with current tools and support model. In the end, the cost to implement ESX Server was $331K+, whereas Virtual Server was $272K+.
The two above examples come from a public presentation at Microsoft TechEd 2006 (June 06). More recent examples are here: http://www.microsoft.com/casestudies/search.aspx?ProTaxID=2273
Tuesday, July 17, 2007 at 7:49 pm
slowe
Patrick,
In all honesty, would a Microsoft employee such as yourself be willing to admit that ESX Server has been found as the right choice by many organizations? Over Virtual Server?
If you go back and read this posting, and read many of the comments, many of us pointed out that Virtual Server (like VMware Server) has its place, and it will be the right choice for some organizations. However, ESX Server (instead of Virtual Server or VMware Server) will be the right choice for many organizations. It is my personal opinion (an opinion that is apparently shared by many and backed up by numerous real-world implementations) that ESX Server offers a more robust, enterprise-class feature set that precludes direct comparison with Virtual Server. There is no live migration (nor will there be in WSV–only “quick migration,” which still involves downtime) and there is no equivalent to VMware Distributed Resource Scheduling (DRS) to help spread workloads evenly across all available physical hosts.
For many organizations, the (relatively) steep learning curve for ESX Server and VirtualCenter is outweighed by the advanced functionality. For some organizations, as you’ve pointed out, Virtual Server’s ease of use and similarity to existing Microsoft products and technologies will prove more beneficial.
NOTE: Just for the record, as a former Microsoft-only engineer with NO significant Linux or UNIX experience, I didn’t find the learning curve for ESX Server too steep to manage. Anyone with prior UNIX or Linux experience will find it even easier, and the Windows-only VirtualCenter Server simplifies the management of the product even more.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 2:06 pm
Patrick
Scott - I’m in complete agreement with the 2nd to last paragraph of your blog post. And I’m not questioning VMware’s installed base - their license revenue is now public information and speaks for itself. I wanted to provide examples of “important criteria” to two MS customers. The eval/selection criteria is often times much broader than technology or features, though technology/features tend to be most heavily weighted. In the end, there’s a big virtualization market out there for customers, to choose amongst server virtualization, OS virtualization, application virtualization, presentation virtualization, storage, etc. Customers will choose what works best for their situation.
Wednesday, July 18, 2007 at 3:07 pm
slowe
Patrick,
Agreed–customers will and should choose the virtualization solution that works best for their environment and their situation.