Hyper-V and VMware — Part 2: Features

Posted on July 21st, 2009 by Gosia Grabowska

Hyper-V and VMware — 2: Features

Last week I talked about Hyper-V and VMware usability. In this article I want to talk about all the different features available for both — Hyper-V and VMware. 

Just like in the first article I am not going to suggest which one is better or which one is worse — this is for you to decide. I will just list the features and give you a very quick overview of what they will do for you.

If you’re interested in any of these features I would suggest doing some more research to find out if a specific solution is compatible with your current network infrastructure.

Ready? Here we go.

Hyper-V Features

Here is a list of Hyper-V features on Server 2008:

  • Quick Migration – this features will let you, the administrator, to quickly move virtual machines from one host to another which means minimal downtime.

  • High Availability – with Hyper-V you will be able to cluster your virtual machines on a specific host.

  • Server Core Role – you can install Hyper-V by going to Add Role on Windows Server 2008. This is a very quick and easy installation.

  • Integrated into Server Manager – the Hyper-V Manager is integrated into Server Manager providing the typical Microsoft look and feel. You can now add the Hyper-V role from Server Manager as well.

  • Live Backups with VSS - this features is also called snapshots. It is provided by Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) Service and it allows you to take a live backup of a running virtual machine.

  • VHD Tools – this enables you to do compaction, expansion, and inspection of any Virtual Hard Disk (VHD) that was created with Hyper-V.

  • Linux Integration Components – these SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 components enable Xen-enabled Linux for VSP/VSC architecture as well as improved performance.

  • VM Manageability – you can now import and export Virtual Machine (VM) settings for backups or for cloning purposes. You can clone the VMs not only on a specific host but across different hosts.

  • Improved Performance – Hyper-V on Windows Server 2008 now include integration components.

  • Improved Access Control with AzMan – Authorization Manager (AzMan) enables Role-Based Access Control which provides better administration of Hyper-V environment with increased security.

  • Remote Management – you can now install Hyper-V MMC on a separate management node.

  • Increased Virtual SCSI Support – provides support up to 4 virtual SCSI controllers per VM which provides a broader disk support.

  • Increased Memory Support – now up to 64GB of memory per VM.

  • Quick Reset – you, as the administrator, can now quickly Reset Checkboxes and delete all saved credentials used for connection to VMs.

For all of you who are about to upgrade to Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft also provides the following features:

  • Live Migration Feature for Failover Clusters - this feature will allow you to move virtual machines from one host to another without any interruption of service.

  • Better Fault Tolerance and Cluster Validation Tool

  • Enhancements to the Hyper-V Manager

  • Better Virtual Networking – there are few new network technologies improving the overall VM network performance. Two of them are: VM Chimney (a.k.a. TCP Offload) and Jumbo Frames.

  • Hot-Switching of VHDs – you can now add and remove VHD files without rebooting your virtual machine. This provides a lot more flexibility when it comes to storage needs and growth.

I think the biggest feature available with Windows Server 2008 R2 is the Live Migration feature. This feature has been available with VMware for quite some time and I know a lot of Microsoft lovers were waiting for it for quite some time.

VMware vSphere Features

VMware vSphere editions offer a different set of features which I will also go over with you.  Based on what features you are interested in you can pick the specific VMware edition

vSphereFeatures

  • Thin Provisioning – this feature provides increased storage utilization, enhanced application uptime, and simplified storage capacity management.

  • VC Agent – VirtualCenter Agent will allow you to collect, communicate, and execute actions received from the VirtualCenter Server.

  • Update Manager - will allow you to automate all patches and updates.

  • VMSafe – with VMSafe your virtual datacenter can be more secure than physical environment.

  • vStorage APIs – enables backup software to perform scalable, centralized backup of your virtual machines without disturbing your users.

  • High Availability (HA) – this feature is slightly different from the Hyper-V HA. VMware offers HA across your entire virtualized environment without the cost or complexity of clusters.

  • Data Recovery – this is a disk-based backup and recovery solution that provides quick, simple and complete data protection for your virtual machines.

  • Hot Add – will allow you to perform dynamic, on the fly change to Virtual Machine resource.

  • Fault Tolerance – This feature, based on vLockstep technology provides zero downtime and zero data loss without the clustering solution.

  • vShield Zones – with this feature you will be able to run applications efficiently within a shared resource pool and at the same time maintain trust and network segmentation of users and sensitive data.

  • VMotion – this is a VMware version of Live Migration, which will enable you to move a virtual machine from one physical server to another.

  • Storage VMotion – this type of Live Migration will allow you to move virtual machine disk files between different physical servers while maintaining service availability.

  • DRS+DPM – Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) provides constant monitoring of utilization across resource pools while Distributed Power Management (DPM) optimizes power consumption in your datacenter.

  • vNetwork Distributed Switch – will provide a centralized point of controller for cluster level networking. It simplifies and enhances the provisioning, administration, and monitoring of Virtual Machine Networking.

  • Host Profiles – this is a new feature included in vSphere that ensures a level of configuration standardization and compliance across your hosts.

  • Third Party Multipathing – this feature is provided by Pluggable Storage Architecture (PSA) that allows workload balancing and high availability.

Now you can go over and see which features you will need or want to use in your environment. You should seriously consider them all before choosing one of these virtualization solutions. 

For more information on Hyper-V features visit Windows Server 2008 site and Windows Server 2008 R2 site. 

If you want to find out more about VMware features visit VMware vSphere Editions Comparison.

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