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2Sep/080

Initial Findings with VMware ESXi and Hyper-V Comparison

I have been working with both for the last couple of weeks, these are some of my initial impressions and findings:

  • ESXi is bare metal (running with no real underlining OS, well something that looks like about a 32meg Linux Kernel). Hyper-V requires 64bit Windows 2008. Apparently there is supposed to be a bare metal version available, but I have not been able to find it.
  • ESXi seems to perform better with data copying and memory management. I have copied multiple .iso images (around 2 gigs worth) and VMware seemed to like it better.
  • Server OS loaded so far: Windows 2003 Standard R2 32bit , Windows 2003 x64 Enterprise, Ubuntu Linux v8.04, SUSE Linux, and OpenBSD. So far, all have worked well, no major problems.
  • Dell's PowerEdge 2950 from the factory need the Virtualization turned on in the BIOS in order to use ESXi or Hyper-V. They will install, but not function properly.
  • Hyper-V's console seems snappier and more responsive. VMware Infastructure Client seems like running a Java client, sometimes very slow and unresponsive.
  • Hyper-V is pretty simple to create a sysprep image for mass distribution of servers. ESXi, I had to find some articles on the web on how to hack the console so I could do this, not a supported feature. If we went with the full ESX suite, this would not be needed as you can use templates (which if they are available for ESXi, I can not find it). The hacking the console is a pain as I have to edit XML files as well, but doable. Something else I am going to try is just create a sysprep image and make it into an .iso, would be very close to the same thing I am trying to accomplish now.
22Aug/080

Dell and Virtualization

I found this link while browsing around the other day. Even though it is Dell specific, they seem to be trying out a bunch of different products. The reality is, hardware is not going to be your show stopper (usually), it is how the virtualization software you want to use takes advantage of it.