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trusted1
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OracleVM turns up the heat

Oracle just threw their hat into the virtualization market - http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/prnewswire/AQM14012112007-1.htm Looks like a similar model to their Linux support, but now for virtualization based on Xen. $499 per 2-CPU box, and $999 per system with unlimited CPUs per year.

I'm just getting ready to bring my VCP to a new job for a company with strong Oracle and Citrix ties. I'm a little worried this recent announcement means I have Xen training in the near future. Is there still room for VMware in an Oracle shop?? You have your topic...talk amongst yourselves.

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TomHowarth
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I can buy 1 server 2008 license and use that same license to run a 2008 server virtually, for free

So, I do not see your point here, the EULA states that if a Windows 2003/8 server is being used a as a virtualisation host, it can not be utilised for ANY other service, that includeds DNS, WINS, ADS, F&P, IIS. so what exactly do you gain by having a Win2K8 server license running it on the physical hardware and then running an stymied VM Guest with the virtualisation right? I can understand if you were talking about Enterprise (4 VM instances) or DataCenter (unlimited Instances) but Server is just a marketing ploy. it fools you into beleiving you are geting a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) you don't. you still get one usable server. (albeit at a significantly degraded preformances, than on bare metal or ESX)

XEN performance with paravirtualised Linux's is actually superior to ESX's however it is none intuative and nowhere near a mature as ESX, don't let the version 4.0 tag fool you there is a very steep learning curve to get a correctly configured system. ESX's management is far superior This situation will change with Citrix's purchase of the product, but it wll be a couple of years until it starts to materilise in a intuative format.

VMware do need to get more aggresive on price, but that is only one side of the coin. They need to continue inovation and drive the feature set. so that they keep clear sky between them and their competitors. XEN is inreality their only competitor Virtualron (OK but they lost there USP when they dropped their Virtualisation Grid type product and started to follow the sheep) MS hypervisor (this is still more akin to Virtual Server don't believe the hype ServerCore is still very heavweight)

Just look at the way Fusion as taken the Mac market by storm Paralells is having a hard time at the moment.

VMware is no Dead Donkey and remember you do not just pitch a product on Price. we are still feeling the costs of the last time that happened and everybody went MS ADS rather than NDS the majority of those decisions were purely based on cost, with no thought to ongoing support and scaling ( and what have we got a directory service which is still not a feature rich as NDS was in 1999)

When MS bundled terminal Services with Win2k everybody said thats the end of Citrix. (they evolved and offered more value)

When MS bundle the hypervisor with Win2k8 everybody will say thats the end of VMware (no they will evolve and offer more value interms of performance, resillience, (look at what is coming in 3.5 (DRM, storage vMotion etc))

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points

Kind Regards

Tom,

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410

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phyberport
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I can't comment on oracle products because I have no experience with them, we've been using ESX for 5 years now. However, from the outside looking in, this looks like another company taking an open source product and slapping something together as a quick money grab. I think every company is going to have some virtualization product in the near future, probably based on Xen because they don't have to do much work to get it going. VMware could crush all this nonsense by creating a "thin" hypervisor for windows and linux in vmware server, and dropping the price of 3i to around $100, or, *gasp* even make it free.

trusted1
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With the OracleVM and Citrix XenServer pricing the way it is, I'm going to have a hard time pitching them a $1000 VMware starter license with no VMotion, when I could get them Xen with Enterprise Management for $499 per 2proc server. VMware has got to budge on the starter package. I don't think they want to concede the small biz market yet, do they?

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phyberport
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I completely agree. M$ just announced new pricing and licensing for Server 2008. I can buy 1 server 2008 license and use that same license to run a 2008 server virtually, for free. I can then use a VSS capable backup utility to back it up. I know vmware is more mature, I love their products, but the old saying, "money talks..." still holds true.

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TomHowarth
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I can buy 1 server 2008 license and use that same license to run a 2008 server virtually, for free

So, I do not see your point here, the EULA states that if a Windows 2003/8 server is being used a as a virtualisation host, it can not be utilised for ANY other service, that includeds DNS, WINS, ADS, F&P, IIS. so what exactly do you gain by having a Win2K8 server license running it on the physical hardware and then running an stymied VM Guest with the virtualisation right? I can understand if you were talking about Enterprise (4 VM instances) or DataCenter (unlimited Instances) but Server is just a marketing ploy. it fools you into beleiving you are geting a BOGOF (Buy One Get One Free) you don't. you still get one usable server. (albeit at a significantly degraded preformances, than on bare metal or ESX)

XEN performance with paravirtualised Linux's is actually superior to ESX's however it is none intuative and nowhere near a mature as ESX, don't let the version 4.0 tag fool you there is a very steep learning curve to get a correctly configured system. ESX's management is far superior This situation will change with Citrix's purchase of the product, but it wll be a couple of years until it starts to materilise in a intuative format.

VMware do need to get more aggresive on price, but that is only one side of the coin. They need to continue inovation and drive the feature set. so that they keep clear sky between them and their competitors. XEN is inreality their only competitor Virtualron (OK but they lost there USP when they dropped their Virtualisation Grid type product and started to follow the sheep) MS hypervisor (this is still more akin to Virtual Server don't believe the hype ServerCore is still very heavweight)

Just look at the way Fusion as taken the Mac market by storm Paralells is having a hard time at the moment.

VMware is no Dead Donkey and remember you do not just pitch a product on Price. we are still feeling the costs of the last time that happened and everybody went MS ADS rather than NDS the majority of those decisions were purely based on cost, with no thought to ongoing support and scaling ( and what have we got a directory service which is still not a feature rich as NDS was in 1999)

When MS bundled terminal Services with Win2k everybody said thats the end of Citrix. (they evolved and offered more value)

When MS bundle the hypervisor with Win2k8 everybody will say thats the end of VMware (no they will evolve and offer more value interms of performance, resillience, (look at what is coming in 3.5 (DRM, storage vMotion etc))

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points

Kind Regards

Tom,

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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TomHowarth
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Would you trust 1.0 product!! seriously though, to be truthful high end oracle is not really suited as a Virtualisation candidate, XEN only offers better performance for Paravirtualised Guests, Virtual machine (ala VMware style) is actully worse than ESX due to it the program being hosted like VMware server running on Linux

If you found this or any other post helpful please consider the use of the Helpfull/Correct buttons to award points

Kind Regards

Tom,

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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phyberport
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Good points Tom. I fear the management types who will wonder why they are paying VMWare extra money, when it's "somewhat" already built into the Windows 2008 license they just bought.

trusted1
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Tom, thanks for getting in there and boosting my morale. I've been buried by Citrix (and now Oracle) Xen propaganda in the last week and was in sore need of a pep talk. I can now take my VCP certificate and walk proudly again down the streets of my small midwestern town, where people don't even know what a servers are, let alone VMware. Smiley Happy

Just curious, any clues on where I can find the "Rush Limbaugh Show" of VMware to help keep me balanced against the Xen political campaign?

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_McClane_
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My biggest issue with the Oracle debate is that they are no longer supporting their software if it is not run on their hypervisor. What happens if Microsoft does something similar and will not allow you to do Windows Updates unless you are running the VM on their hypervisor? What is to stop them from doing something like that and what could VMWare possibly do to combat it?

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phyberport
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Microsoft also just announced a new program in which 3rd party virtualization vendors can "validate a specific virtualization stack (hardware + hypervisor) to provide customers out-of-the-box support for Windows guest OSes". Read about it here:

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TomHowarth
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In the states your anti trust laws, (it would be a gross abuse of their position as a dominant player, also the EU would not allow the position either.

Kind Regards

Tom,

Tom Howarth VCP / VCAP / vExpert
VMware Communities User Moderator
Blog: http://www.planetvm.net
Contributing author on VMware vSphere and Virtual Infrastructure Security: Securing ESX and the Virtual Environment
Contributing author on VCP VMware Certified Professional on VSphere 4 Study Guide: Exam VCP-410
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