There are quite a few articles these days comparing VMware virtualization with Microsoft Hyper-V, which is to be expected since the press knows this topic is in the foreground for many IT managers right now.
A typical, albeit incorrect, comparison goes something like this:
- Both products are bare metal hypervisors
- VMware has lots of great features, like VMotion (live migration)
- But those great features make the solution more expensive
- Hyper-V (with quick migration) is good enough
The other day a colleague pointed out a Microsoft blog that upped the ante one further, taking this quote from an iTNews article:
“You’ve got to question whether it’s worth paying $50,000 for that. I know the VMware camp go on about features like VMotion, but for $50,000 I could pay someone to move my virtual machines for me.”
Several commenters on the article have already questioned the legitimacy of this $50K figure; I’ve got nothing to add there. You can deploy a VMware solution for less than that.
The part that really strikes me is the misguided concept of paying someone to move VMs. It’s really not clear how any amount of additional money/personnel in your organization could help you move VMs without downtime in a Hyper-V environment.
So now, be on the lookout for another critical talking point to appear in future VMware vs. Microsoft articles:
- Money saved by not buying VMware can be used to hire additional system administrators
“Hey boss, where do you want these virtual machines?”
