Microsoft takes on the private cloud To many, private cloud is simply virtualisation plus management. But there is more to it than that. There is an awful lot of misunderstanding surrounding such an important design concept, in part stemming from a lack of exposure to what is possible with today's technology. Different vendors say different things based upon the …
I note in your article that Microsoft includes this. An implied is that no other Hypervisor can...Well every other hypervisor be it XEN, ESXi, KVM etc etc can achieve the same functionality while also ensuring no propriety lock in to there systems. Yes it may not be built into the hypervisor but is available even at no cost if you are happy to use open source solutions like OpenStack. I would like to see a follow up option exploring all the possible Local Storage (Virtualization Solutions)
Agreed, i remember reading about VMWare tools capable of all of this more than 6 months ago. They also work for on a non windoze OS....
It's becoming increasingly easy to spot a sponsored el reg article thanks to the obvious bias normally made clear in the first paragraph.
IT because this clearly is more about politics.
If and when someone asks me to write about a particular topic at El Reg, it is vague and open ended. Content, direction, tone...they are up to me. If you feel this article is a little lovey dovey regarding Microsoft's cloudy offerings...that might stem from the fact that after lab testing what's on the table, I legitimately believe they have the best offering.
And no, VMWare's storage capabilities aren't as good. MS have stolen a march here. For now; they are out in front; future articles in the set will explain that in detail.
In the meantime, maybe you should download Server 2012 and SCVMM 2012 and see for yourself. MS have blown me away here; second-rate also-ran to "well they just might be the best for this round of virtualisation offerings" in just a few years.
Boggles the mind.
I go more in depth into local storage in upcoming articles.
As to exploring other alternatives; I can't afford VMWare. I can only afford to review MS because of technet. Open source virtualiation options will be reviewed...but I lost two servers and my SAN towards the end of the Microsoft review. I have to buy expensive replacement equipment to properly do those reviews...something I have to put off until after my wedding in July.
My VMWare testing tends to occur when I can borrow a buddy's lab who has licences. (I got time on the lab for the duration of the MS cloud eval.) Thay lets me see what VMWare can do...not how easy it is to set up.
The one thing I can tell you about MS is this; "zero to hyper-v private cloud in a few clicks" is not exactly exaggeration. I can build a fully SaaS ready MS-based private cloud in about 1/2 hour, if I have good gear.
Based on my useage of production envrionments, my "state of virtualisation" impression is this: MS were playing catch-up last round. This round, I think they might just be a few steps ahead. (They certainly are in storage!) Openstack and KVM are decent IaaS offerings, but have quite a bit of catch up to do to reach MS or VMWare anywhere else.
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Good: Nearly everything. If you want PaaS or SaaS (especially SaaS) it kills the competition.
Bad: Completely reliant on Active Directory
Ugly: Completely outside my price range; so expensive I will be using Openstack and KVM until I die. But still cheaper than VMWare. (Which says all sorts of ?!? to me about VMWare's pricing...)
There were two more in depth articles that followed this one. They'll be posted soon.
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