Does VMware have a real future?

Does VMware Have a Real Future? - Computerworld_

Thoughts?

I don't really have an opinion on this to be honest, but I thought it was worth sharing.

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Comments

tpatt100

Excellent article

N2IT

From a high-level perspective I found it very interesting. I love business strategy that involves technology.

meadIT

From Article wrote:

Within that projected 27%, Gartner says Microsoft will take 85% of all small businesses that use virtual servers

This was misinterpreted from Gartner's report. See VMware's rebuttal here: VMware: Virtual Reality: Setting SolarWinds straight on how SMBs prefer VMware over Microsoft

N2IT

The concern I think VWware potential could be facing is that other operating systems will provide this service for free. Or as the article states "Baked in".

It might be a decent strategy for VM to merge or become aquired by another large scale OS provider.

Claymoore

N2IT wrote: »

The concern I think VWware potential could be facing is that other operating systems will provide this service for free. Or as the article states "Baked in".

It might be a decent strategy for VM to merge or become aquired by another large scale OS provider.

They are owned by EMC, so they have plenty of money.

VMWare has a future much the same way GroupWise and Lotus Notes have a future. Some places have an almost religious dedication to certain vendors and/or a fanatical hatred of MS. VMWare won't be the king any more, as MS has closed the feature gap and will pass them with Server 8. And then there's the price...

TLeTourneau

As someone who has worked with both VMWare and Hyper-V I don't see the MS product making serious inroads to the enterprise yet. It just does not have the backend to support large enterprise virtualization yet. Hyper-V could move more into the SMB market because of its inclusion in the Windows OS but that will only work as long as the customer doesn't need the really advanced functions that you can get with VMWare. As long as you don't grow you’re OK.

. I have not looked at Hyper-V in Windows 8, once it gets closer to release I'll look at it.

deth1k

Cisco and EMC own VMWare, virtualization is the future, look at all new products that came our recently all being optimized for VM it's hottest thing right now and for near future. I don't see MS / Citrix being rivals to VM at all in fact it pushes VM for new products and features.

N2IT

This is great information. Thanks for participating I appreciate all the knowledgable opinions.

QHalo

deth1k wrote: »

Cisco and EMC own VMWare

VMware is a subsidiary of EMC, Cisco is a strategic alliance partner.

Zartanasaurus

I like the fact that Cisco is including Nexus 1000V support in Hyper-V 8.

QHalo

Zartanasaurus wrote: »

I like the fact that Cisco is including Nexus 1000V support in Hyper-V 8.

Yeah I was going to reply with that as well. It's in Cisco's best interest to support all providers as they get to charge for their switch. I wouldn't be surprised if we didn't see one available for XenServer soon.

rsutton

TLeTourneau wrote: »

<snip snip>Hyper-V could move more into the SMB market because of its inclusion in the Windows OS but that will only work as long as the customer doesn't need the really advanced functions that you can get with VMWare. As long as you don't grow you’re OK. . <snip snip>

Can you expand on this? I'm curious to know what features are lacking, from a technicians viewpoint.I work primarily with ESX for SMB's...

TLeTourneau

rsutton wrote: »

Can you expand on this? I'm curious to know what features are lacking, from a technicians viewpoint.I work primarily with ESX for SMB's...

An equivalent to Storage VMotion, DRS and the ability to migrate multiple VM's at once come to mind immediately. If they are part of the current MS offering I apologize, the last time I looked it did not have the ability to perform those functions.

Akaricloud

I would say that VMware definitely has a strong future as long as they continue to innovate in the market.

I look at VMware like I look at Apple's mobile devices. Sure there's competition but they continue to be the first to bring new features to the market and do so in a very clean/reliable fashion giving them a strong competitive advantage.

While they may lose overall market share, the growth of the virtualization market will permit sales to continue to rise and push further innovation. The exact same has happened in the smartphone industry; Apple lost market share and increased sales while the competition led to many great features being developed.

pcgizzmo

There is a large benefit of being first to market and having market share as well as having the most well rounded product.

As long as they don't start pricing themselves any further out of the market I think they can be around for some time to come. Just my opinion.

MentholMoose

People have been writing articles like this for years. In fact, this same blogger posted something very similar four years ago:
Kiss VMware's rump good-bye - Computerworld Blogs

Unfortunately for the doomsayers, if up front costs were the only consideration, VMware would have died long ago (and we would probably be stuck with the hypervisor equivalent of IE6). If you ever point out reality to one of these guys, their argument usually goes something like:

Claymoore wrote: »

VMWare won't be the king any more, as MS has closed the feature gap and will pass them with Server 8.

In other words, the next version will be different. It really will be the death of VMware this time, honest! Then the next version comes, nothing happens, and it is, "oh, just wait for it to RTM, or wait until SP1, or until R2", and so on. You might as well argue (and people do) that Windows is about to die since Linux is "free". Unfortunately for that argument, Windows is still going strong despite a plethora of free alternatives.

pwjohnston

Does it matter? I'm VCP and Hyper-V certified and I have deployed and administrated Xenserver (a nice alternative) for a couple years. Virtualization is here and will be for probably quite some time because companies like to save $$$. The way I look at it VCP is the market leader and you are serious about virtualization, you should know it now. However, if you use Novell in the 90's as a roadmap to a possible VMWare future, but you understand the main concepts behind virtualization, you can't really lose.

ptilsen

VMware isn't going away. Neither are desktops, laptops, PC gaming, or broadcast television in the United States. Other vendors' products are getting more and more compelling, and VMware does have some problems with pricing and the business model. Ultimately, though, VMware is still providing the best solution out there, and I don't see that changing anytime soon.

it_consultant

MentholMoose wrote: »

People have been writing articles like this for years. In fact, this same blogger posted something very similar four years ago:
Kiss VMware's rump good-bye - Computerworld Blogs

Unfortunately for the doomsayers, if up front costs were the only consideration, VMware would have died long ago (and we would probably be stuck with the hypervisor equivalent of IE6). If you ever point out reality to one of these guys, their argument usually goes something like:

In other words, the next version will be different. It really will be the death of VMware this time, honest! Then the next version comes, nothing happens, and it is, "oh, just wait for it to RTM, or wait until SP1, or until R2", and so on. You might as well argue (and people do) that Windows is about to die since Linux is "free". Unfortunately for that argument, Windows is still going strong despite a plethora of free alternatives.

The problem with saying that VMWARE is going to die is that once you get married to that platform, you need to wait until your hardware to become antiquate before it makes sense to migrate. If you figure a nice enterprise HP server lasts about 6-7 years, if you started your first server on VMWARE, and you probably added more later, you are looking at a 10 year lifecycle for your virtualization platform.

A lot of the "Advanced" features are available in Hyper-V including a beta of the "Cloud" (or browser based) management console, in the VMWARE world this is vcloud or whatever. The HA functions are quite similar between the two, and if you use Microsoft's Virtual Machine Manager, the management is even a bit easier in Windows. It helps that they practically give it away.

Of course, my clients are only on year three of this cycle, and I am still stuck paying $2000 a proc annually for support through VMWARE.

Full disclosure, I am on the second round of interviews with VMWARE for one of their tech support positions.

SteveLord

Better not die! I just ordered the infamous Mastering VSphere 5 book!

QHalo

It's not going anywhere anytime soon.

QHalo

Got this through my RSS feed from Scott Lowe. I thought it a fitting add to the discussion.

The Hypervisor is Only Part of the Picture - blog.scottlowe.org - The weblog of an IT pro specializing in virtualization, storage, and servers

RomBUS

Nice article, thanks for the read.

Its funny how Microsoft just knows how to show potential competitors the business, they just shunned VMWare from closing that deal and allowing a smaller and lesser known competitor take it. Very cunning MS

But I think VMWare is here to stay because the fact that it has become a staple and built a somewhat desirable platform and community. Even though Hyper-V has come a long way I still consider VMWare the top dog.

jmritenour

I too do a lot of Hyper-V & vSphere deployments, and Hyper-V and VMware are totally different animals. Hyper V is fine if you only need a couple of physical hosts, and are running a primarily Windows shop. It doesn't have anywhere near the guest OS support, the HA/Fault tolerance features, and even similar features to VMware's are sorely lacking (Live Migration vs. vMotion).

Hyper-V has a long way to go if they want to gain more market and mind share than simply "We don't have money to license VMware, let's just go with this cheap as free Microsoft offering". Maybe server 8 will be a game changer, who knows? But VMware tends to evolve a lot in point releases too, so we'll see.