VMWARE VS MS-HYPER-V

VIRTUALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES IN THE ORGANIZATION EVALUATION OF LEADING PRODUCTS : VMWARE ESX MICROSOFT HYPER-V FOR USE IN BUSINESS ENVIRONMENTS Presented by DAVID RAMIREZ Instructor: Dr. A. Lodgher Prairie View A&M University December, 2008 CINS-5073 INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY

The problem Growing requirements of processing: proliferation of servers, demanding more energy, cooling, space

VIRTUALIZATION: Review of Concept

WHAT IS IT ? Virtualization is a software abstraction of computer (hardware) resources.

VIRTUALIZATION MAIN FEATURES

Virtualization products partition physical servers in multiple virtual machines. Each virtual machine represents a complete system, with processors, memory, networking, storage and BIOS.

Multiple virtual machines can share physical resources and run side by side on the same server.

Operating systems and applications can run unmodified in virtual machines.

VIRTUALIZATION ARGUMENTS

HOW CAN IT BE USED WITHIN AN ORGANIZATION FOR ITS BUSINESS PROCESSES ?

By consolidation of servers, isolation of processes, disaster recovery, new software testing.  Savings in costs, increased reliability and availability, more efficient usage of hardware resources.

VIRTUALIZATION: Pros & Cons

WHAT WOULD BE THE ADVANTAGES AND DISADVANTAGES OF VIRTUALIZATION ?

Advantages:

#1 Decreases power, cooling, floor space and infrastructure. #2 Simplifies disaster recovery and business continuity requirements. #3 Increases server utilization from the typical averages of 5-15% to 60-80%. #4 Faster deployment of information technology resources reduces time to market. #5 Lower operational costs associated with reduced resource management and administration. #6 Improves application performance by dynamically adapting storage and server resources to meet peek usage cycles. #7 Aligns application data with the storage infrastructure to match application quality of service requirements and lower cost per gigabyte. #8 Improves protection and recovery of critical business data. #9 Easier to secure and comply with regulatory requirements such as SOX, HIPPA and eDiscovery. #10 Nearly 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies are implementing virtualization in their data centers, and another 30 percent are developing plans to do so. This means a growing available pool of qualified professionals.

VIRTUALIZATION: Pros & Cons (cont.)

Disadvantages #1 Licensing costs.

#2 Vulnerable to server failure. #3 Compromise of virtualized hosts will affect guest machines. #4 Additional guest servers will require their own administration measures.

#5 Initial cost can be high – renewal of associated infrastructure must be added (newest processors, storage).

IMPLEMENTING THE TECHNOLOGY

Once an organization realizes the advantages of going into virtualization, several considerations are to be taken:

Strategy (replace, expand)

What systems to virtualize.

Operating systems involved.

Hardware platforms.

Administrative Issues.

IMPLEMENTING THE TECHNOLOGY

Hardware reuse, replacement.

Licensing issues.

Legacy software considerations.

Additional infrastructure expenses must be considered (e.g. Energy efficient cabinets, new network cabling....)

Prototype testing

Migration

Commissioning

VIRTUALIZATION PRODUCTS IN THE MARKET PARALLELS

VIRTUALIRON

MICROSOFT (Hyper-V Server 2008)

SUN xVM (VirtualBox)

CITRIX (Xen)

VMWARE (ESX, Server)

CASE STUDY:

Evaluation and Comparison of market leader VMWARE ESX product and MICROSOFT recent entry HYPER-V product.

VMWARE ESX

VMWARE ESX ARCHITECTURE Graphic by David Ramirez

VMWARE ESX HARDWARE REQUIREMENTS

Hardware requirements:

Minimum: 1 GB RAM; Recommended: 2+ GB RAM

Maximum (64-bit systems): 256 GB RAM

Hard disk space: Minimum: 10 GB; Recommended: 40 GB or greater . Requires local disk for system, recommended SCSI, SATA limited compatibility. Storage can be attached externally (physical, virtual).

Hardware must be VMWARE certified.

VMWARE typical scenario Guest O.S.: SOLARIS 10

VMWARE ESX Server CASE STUDY: 7-eleven

Solution Overview

Customer Size: 31,500 employees

Organization Profile

7-Eleven, Inc. is the world’s largest operator, franchisor and licensor of convenience stores (34,800 stores in 17 countries, 5,600 stores in North America) . 7-Eleven also is one of the nation's largest independent gasoline retailers.

Hardware

HP ProLiant DL380 G5 servers

Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors

Partner(s) HP

Software and Services

VMWare ESX, VirtualCenter, VMotion

Vertical Industries

Convenience retailing, gasoline retail.

VMWARE ESX Server CASE STUDY: 7-eleven (cont.)

RESULTS

• 15:1 server consolidation on 2-CPU servers, 30:1 on 4-CPU servers

• Shortened deployment time from 6-8 weeks to one day

• Improved server utilization by 60 percent

• Optimized server management with VirtualCenter

• Reduced downtime with VMotion

• Compressed development and testing cycles

• Drastically reduced energy and cooling costs

• Provided mainframe levels of reliability and data security at lower cost

Launched in October, 2008 (late entry in the market – almost 10 years after VMware).

Available as a stand-alone product or as part of Windows 2008 Server

Different licensing and configuration options.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server Packaging 1 physical + unlimited VM 1 physical + 4 VM 1 physical + 1 VM 0 (must purchase) Included guest MS licenses   Support for > 4 processors   Quick Migration   High Availability     Mixed Windows & Linux virt.     Test & Development     Server Consolidation Windows 2008 Server Datacenter Windows 2008 Server Enterprise Windows 2008 Server Standard Hyper-V Server (standalone) Virtualization Needs

Hyper-V Server Architecture Graphic by David Ramirez

Microsoft Hyper-V Server

Hardware requirements:

64-bit x86 processor with hardware-assisted virtualization (Intel VT or AMD-V).

Data execution prevention (DEP) enabled in BIOS. S pecifically, you must enable Intel XD bit (execute disable bit) or AMD NX bit (no execute bit).

Hardware virtualization enabled in BIOS.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server

Hardware requirements (continued):

Minimum: 1 GB RAM; Recommended: 2+ GB RAM

Maximum (64-bit systems): 32 GB

Hard disk space: Minimum: 10 GB; Recommended: 40 GB or greater . Requires local disk for system, storage can be attached externally.

Product implementation

Stand-alone: Microsoft Hyper-V Server:

Contains Windows Hypervisor and other components including base kernel and driver technologies. (Only command line or remote management)

As part of Windows 2008 Server:

Available as a role in Server core or full installation of the Windows 2008 server (Standard, Enterprise, Data Center). GUI console, remote management, command line interfaces.

Microsoft Hyper-V Technical Data

GUEST O.S. SPECIFICATIONS

32 bit (x86) operating systems (e.g. MS-Windows 9x, XP, Vista*; MS-Windows 200x except for Windows 2008 self); Linux, Solaris, Unix.

64 bit (x86) operating systems (Windows, SuSE Linux)**

32 and 64 bit O.S. can execute concurrently.

Up to 4 virtual processors per virtual machine

Up to 31 GB memory for all (up to 128) running virtual machines (1GB reserved for Hyper-V Server Parent Partition) .

* : Windows Vista currently requires patch.

**Note: Red Hat and other Linux must have XEN extensions SOLARIS, UNIX not yet supported.

Microsoft Hyper-V Server Typical Scenario

SCVMM : System Center Virtual Machine Manager Provides overview of a group of hosts, and VM within each host

MS Hyper-V Server CASE STUDY: COSTCO WHOLESALE

Solution Overview

Customer Size: 130000 employees

Organization Profile

Costco Wholesale Corporation is an international wholesale distributor based in Issaquah, Washington. Costco has 539 member warehouses and 130,000 employees.

Hardware

HP ProLiant DL380 G5 servers

Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors

Partner(s) HP

Software and Services

Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008

Windows Server 2008

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Vertical Industries

Consumer Goods

Mostly a Microsoft shop (1200 servers, 95% of them on Windows products)

Started virtualization efforts in 2006 (using MS Virtual Server 2005, a previous, limited virtualization product).

As soon as hearing about Hyper-V, enrolled in MS Virtualization Rapid Deployment Program .

Using MAP tool (Microsoft Assessment and Planning) server loads were evaluated, discovering underutilized servers, good candidates for consolidation.

Initial phase: 50+ servers consolidated on 5 HP servers with Quad-Core Intel Xeon processors.

The server cluster has a core infrastructure that mimics the production Costco environment

Quality Assurance staff verifying r eliability and stability before rolling out new systems to internal customers and member warehouses.

By virtualizing existing servers instead of purchasing new physical machines, Costco limited the proliferation of servers in its data center.

IT staff at Costco expects to achieve 40-45% virtualization by August 2009.

Expected savings in energy costs, currently $75,000/mo (yet to quantify).

ROI not yet published (estimated?)

COMPARISON

Hyper-V lacks some advanced features of VMware's ESX server and virtualization platform, but its relatively low cost, integrated physical and virtual management, and ease of implementation might be good enough for many organizations today.

Microsoft-based shops will eventually migrate to Windows 2008 and have access to Hyper-V (Netscape history repeating ?)

COMPARISON

One important disadvantage of Hyper-V is its requirement for 64-bit hardware. This excludes many 32-bit based infrastructures that may benefit greatly from virtualization, leaving them to the competition.

COMPARISON (cont.)

VMWARE claims to be less expensive than MS-Hyper-V, mainly due to Microsoft’s pricing model regarding licenses of guest OSs, despite a higher license cost per installation.