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VMware and Hyper-v, which is the best solution for you

VMware has ten years of virtualization experience, and it has undoubtedly become the industry leader in terms of technology accumulation and market share. Microsoft Hyper-v is also sharing the cake of the virtualization market. Although it entered the virtualization industry late, its strength should not be underestimated, and it has become VMware’s strongest competitor. Below I will give a brief analysis of Hyper-v and its advantages and disadvantages compared to VMware.

Hyper-v advantages:

  1. Support for windows sub-virtual machines; Hyper-v runs on windows server2008R2, which is more compatible and supported with windows server systems. For example, Hyper-v has advantages in the speed of P2V.
  2. Hyper-V authorization method (small-scale virtualization) The authorization method of Hyper-V is basically calculated according to the number of sub-virtual machines. Buying the enterprise version and data center version (about 2000RMB) will come with 4 free sub-virtual machines. The virtual machine is authorized. If a physical host only plans a few sub-VMs, I think this authorization method will save the deployment cost of enterprise virtualization.
  3. Microkernel architecture Hyper-v adopts microkernel architecture. In Hyper-V, the driver is installed in the sub-operating system, not in the hypervisor layer. This allows vendors and administrators to use drivers designed for the server’s physical hardware rather than virtual hardware drivers. The advantage of this architecture is that driver compatibility or bugs on the child virtual machine will not affect other child virtual machines. VMware adopts a single-kernel architecture, and the drivers are concentrated in the hypervisor. If there is a bug, it will not be easy to find and solve, which will affect the performance of the entire virtual environment or reduce its security.

Disadvantages of Hyper-v:

  1. Authorization method (medium and large scale) The authorization method of Hyper-V is basically calculated according to the number of sub-virtual machines, but there are different restrictions according to the Windows Server2008R2 version: Standard Edition is based on the deployed sub-virtual machine system. Authorized, but it restricts the child virtual machine to only exist on the specified host. This authorization method is not flexible enough, and it will be a painful thing to perform secondary authorization after changing the host. Enterprise Edition and Datacenter Edition are purchased operating systems that are authorized to deploy 4 sub-virtual machines for free. The former can only run 4 sub-virtual machines on a host without special requirements, while the latter has no such restriction. If it is a virtual 5th sub-virtual machine on a host under Datacenter Edition, you need to buy another license. If a host is planned to have 20 sub-virtual machines, 5 sub-virtual machines are required to manage the Hyper-v virtual environment, and the system center and Microsoft System Center Virtual Machine Manager (VMM) need to be purchased. There are also Configuration Manager, Operations Manager, Data Protection Manager, Mobile Device Manager and System Center Essentials, which can be purchased separately.
  2. Technical implementation: Hyper-v does not support excessive memory usage, that is, the total memory capacity allocated to the child virtual machine cannot exceed the physical memory capacity. This means that part of the memory needs to be reserved on the host to prevent other hosts from failing and the child virtual machine cannot be switched. This method will cause a great waste of memory. (VMware supports memory over-allocation) b. The total number of processors allocated to sub-virtual machines cannot exceed the number of physical processors, that is to say, a host with 10 processors is required to plan 10 virtual sub-virtual machines. (VMware does not have this limitation) c. Currently, the Hyper-V sub-virtual machine support for non-windows operating systems is limited to SUSE linuxd, and Hyper-V’s support for 4-way vSMP is limited to Windows Server 2008. For Windows 2003, Hyper-V only supports vSMPe with no more than 2 channels, Hyper-v does not support DRSf, and Hyper-v does not support Storage VMotion (Hyper-v depends on win2008, the total file system is NTFS, which is a non-cluster file system) operation system.
  3. Security: Hyper-v relies on windows server2008R2. Relatively speaking, the products of the windows series are more vulnerable to attacks, and their security is lower than that of VMware ESX, which uses linux as the console. b. In terms of security protection, only traditional methods can be used, while VMware can provide APIs to third-party security vendors for security defense in the overall solution. c. Because Windows needs to restart the physical host when it is updated, it also increases the workload of management.
  4. Experience accumulation: Microsoft has been in the virtualization industry for a short time, and its experience accumulation is not rich enough. It needs to improve the stability, performance and security of the overall virtualization solution. Hyper-v is only a small part of Microsoft’s many product lines, and it remains to be seen how much it will invest in virtualization in the future. In my opinion, the current Microsoft Hyper-v is suitable for small-scale and small-scale applications, and the application scope can be considered after the product is further mature.

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