Microsoft vs VMware... Whats better?

It seems that everything is always divided into sections and people always feel the need to belong. You have the hardcore Apple fans and the loyal Android minions. The people who love cheese and those who despise it. Of course, you also have the Microsoft affectionados and the individuals who swear the best hypervisor in the world is built by VMware. Whats better? Who makes a better solution?

Well, lets dive in and I will let you decide.....

VMware vSphere pros

• Broadest vendor support: When it comes to virtualizing applications, customers need to choose an option that will be supported by the largest number of software programs and systems. VMware's market-leading position gives customers the most options when it comes to building virtualized environments that will have the most support.


• Most features: The vSphere series of products, in particular vCenter Server, allow solutions providers to design highly-available infrastructures with advanced management features. ESX, ESXi, vCenter Server and other VMware products apply not only to enterprises, but to smaller organizations as well that need high-performance and enterprise-class features for virtualization components.

VMware vSphere cons

• High entry costs: Along with a wide array of features, vSphere also comes with a high price tag for initial purchases. Simply comparing per-processor costs of core virtualization components, vSphere is more expensive at face value than its competitors' products. All virtualization providers contentiously argue the price and return on investment (ROI) factors of virtualization. Be sure to check out the VMware Cost-Per-Application calculator, Microsoft virtualization cost comparison calculator and the Citrix ROI demonstration tool.


• Hardware incompatibility: While the vSphere Compatibility Matrix continues to expand, other virtualization offerings have broader hardware support. Microsoft virtualization has the broadest supported device inventory.

Microsoft Hyper-V R2 pros

• Familiar interface: Some customers prefer using products from just one vendor, and Hyper-V virtualization is a more natural transition from Windows server environments. The virtualization management engine with System Center adds features for customers in a simple tiered approach, from the application to the OS, and lastly, to the virtualization engine. For organizations that have a large investment in other System Center technologies, such as Operations Manager, System Center Virtual Machine Manager for Hyper-V may be a natural addition.


• Broad hardware compatibility: Being part of Windows Server 2008 R2, Hyper-V R2 benefits by having the same driver support. While VMware is expanding its product line and has also added the new pluggable storage architecture, Windows device support can't be beat.


• Integration with existing virtualization infrastructure: Customers want to capitalize on existing investments. Most environments have some level of Microsoft Windows Server investment, and expanding that investment to include Hyper-V may be attractive.

Microsoft Hyper-V R2 cons

• Less vendor support: For software publishers that do have virtualization support, Hyper-V R2 is not frequently listed as one of the products they support. While virtualization support is determined by a number of factors, Hyper-V isn't the most supported hypervisor for third-party applications.


• Features gap: Hyper-V virtualization goes deeper with some features, such as alert management and monitoring within the guest virtual machine's OS with System Center Operations Manager and integration with Group Policy. VSphere has more virtualization-specific features that are more important to infrastructure architects. Hyper-V does not yet offer a fault tolerance virtual machine (VM) that runs concurrently on two hosts, and it has fewer virtualization-specific disaster recovery options than vSphere.