VMware-Microsoft Battle Looming

An anonymous reader writes "VMWare released a white paper detailing its concerns with license changes on Microsoft software that may limit the ability to move virtual-machine software around data centers to automate the management of computing work. Two choice quotes: '"Microsoft is looking for any way it can to gain the upper hand," said Diane Greene, the president of VMware.' And, '"This seems to be a far more subtle, informed and polished form of competitive aggression than we've seen from Microsoft in the past," said Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor at Howard University. "And Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor."'"

Comments

uh, news...

[cosmocain]

...Microsoft is using dirty strategies to fight a competitor. Films at 11.

Virtualization in the OS?

[MZ80K]

From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""

Virtualization belongs below the operating system, let's say in the BIOS.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[lukas84]

I suggest you to look into IBM's System i product line.

They've got a fancy Hypervisor in Hardware (called the FSP, flexible service processor). Linux is supported natively.

The Managment Console is running Linux, too.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[TapeCutter]

"From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""

VM == Virtually Microsoft's?

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[ocbwilg]

"From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system."" VM == Virtually Microsoft's?

The problem with Ballmer's comment (not yours) is that the Operating System is what we want to virtualize. While VMWare ESX is probably almost as much of an operating system as Windows is, it's definitely a lot more stripped down and tightly focused on doing only one thing (providing virtualization) and doing it well. If you have a general purpose OS that also supports VMs, and you run VMs inside that OS, then you're asking for problems. Not just from a performance standpoint, but security as well. This kind of thinking is one of the reasons why their Virtual Server product is so far behind VMWare's ESX.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[weave]

From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""

What really belongs in the OS is a self-defense mechanism against malware and viruses, but for whatever reason Microsoft has chosen to let bottom feeders like Symantec live.

Anti-virus should be an included part of the OS along with updates. It's addressing flaws in the product.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[babbling]

Symantec are not the problem. Symantec is the partial/flawed solution to a problem that Microsoft hasn't fixed. The problem is so large that there is an entire market created by it.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[yorugua]

I suggest you to look into IBM's System i product line. They've got a fancy Hypervisor in Hardware (called the FSP, flexible service processor). Linux is supported natively. Actually, S/390 has been doing that trick for ages (OS390, Linux, VM, VM/ESA...). i Series does that now, p Series does too (hmmm, even p and i series are based on "very" similar HW) so you can run AIX and Linuxes all on the same HW. Now, x Series will also join the fun.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[msobkow]

"And Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor."

But VMWare only is a "competitor" because VMWare was making some money and Microsoft just couldn't let their cash vaccuum miss any potential revenue. Had Microsoft stuck to what they do "best", VMWare wouldn't be a competitor and that whole aspect of the argument would be moot.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[SlOrbA]

If it isn't in the Operating System it can't be embedded into the Windows and so MicroSoft can't kill other implementations.

Actually in x86 platforms Virtualisation should be at least on the OS because if there is no virtualisation initialisation the system can be exposed to a virualisation enabled malware.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[weave]

And before anyone says anything obvious, yes, I think other OS vendors should too. If they were expected to fix the flaws in their own product, then they'd have a higher incentive to stop the problem, or greatly reduce it and hence their expense in managing it all.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[lukas84]

System i and System p are the same hardware. That's official information.

There's a system license code which tells the FSP firmware on what it runs. Theoretically, it's possible to change the system license code.

With the new System i5 520+, you can enter an activation license to activate the full CPU in the basic 1 way systems, they're usually restricted to 21% of their 1.9Ghz P5 CPU. For just 20k, you get an activation code for the CPU ;)

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[yorugua]

Yes, that's official now. I also remember the RS/6000 S70 days: its boot display will start by displaying AS/400 boot codes, then jump into normal "RS/6000" led display codes...

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the last times I was in Rochester, we had a 9111 machine type system with i5/OS as the primary OS.

That would be a System p machine type vs the System i 9406. : ) The hardware is identical, as are many of the features.

Sure, S/390 has been doing partitions longer than probably anything. System i has had partitioning for around 6-7 years now (V4R4 era), and System p a bit less than that.

K.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[GreatDrok]

"Anti-virus should be an included part of the OS along with updates. It's addressing flaws in the product."

Anti-virus shouldn't exist since viruses themselves shouldn't exist. The problem here is that viruses and trojans took hold when MS bolted networking into an operating system that was unprepared for it. This made the virus problem much worse than it ever would have been because they spread like a plague with nothing to prevent the spread. Anti-virus tries to fix this by detecting this spread but this can never be completely secure and the virus/trojan writers know they have a very fertile ground and do all they can to keep it that way. On other platforms, the virus problem never got out of hand because the mechanisms for their propogation were reasonably controlled. It would only have taken a little roadblock here and there to prevent the virus problem entirely but MS chose not to implement them. Macs and Linux/UNIX machines will never have the same problem even if they become as popular as Windows is today because the virus/trojan culture cannot get sufficient traction to be successfully propogated in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile. On Windows the lax security made a wonderful landscape for malware propogation and now that it exists the writers will keep trying to maintain it so MS has a much harder struggle to kill off the problem than those platforms which never had it in the first place. Even with equivalent security to a Mac I don't believe that Windows would be as secure since there is just so much out there already.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[statusbar]

But they ARE sticking to what they do "best"... they play dirty pool against companies in markets that they want to control.... Even if it costs them money and even if it inconveniences the users of their products...

--jeffk++

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[weave]

Not just Microsoft, and not just networks as a transport mechanism. I remember well the fun back in the late 80s with the WDEF virus on Macs because Apple was stupid enough to allow window controls to contain code in them to determine how they were drawn. So end result was a simple act of inserting an infected floppy into a computer would spread the virus. That was quite a turn of events because before that the conventional wisdom was you were safe unless you ran a program from an unknown source. That little virus spread like mad through computer labs in colleges.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[swillden]

Anti-virus should be an included part of the OS along with updates.

What's I find interesting about your comment is that Microsoft sees virtualization as a major component of their future anti-virus solution.

How's that?

It's what they used to call Palladium, and a key component is the use of virtualization as a kind of a souped-up chroot jail for attack-prone apps -- if you run the browser in its own VM (on top of a minimal, secure OS), then when you close the browser and shut down the VM, any viruses that were able to get in via the browser die with it, assuming they couldn't write themselves into some persistent storage.

Traditional Windows apps couldn't run in such VMs, of course, but it offers a way to have secure apps without losing the ability to run old apps -- insecurely, of course.

Oh, and it would also enable all of the strong DRM crud, because it would provide a nice way to protect certain VM'd apps from manipulation/debugging by the user.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Zonk (troll)]

Macs and Linux/UNIX machines will never have the same problem even if they become as popular as Windows is today because the virus/trojan culture cannot get sufficient traction to be successfully propogated in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile. While it would never be likely for a UNIX-like system to be as bad as Windows due it enforcing a properly security model, don't be overconfident.

I could for example write a "virus" in Perl that would put itself in ~/.kde/Autostart and start attacking other machines or erase your files. Every time you log back in it will start again. Still, it wouldn't be very easy for a virus to infect the system, but the important part of your system is your files and the "virus" will have full access to that.

It could even be written to wait for a user to run sudo and then use sudo to install itself system-wide (most sudo configurations keep a session up for a few minutes). Or just keylog it and then sudo/su itself.

Another problem can be with "installers". A site could distribute a .deb or .rpm with spyware in it. When it's being installed it has full root privileges since you have to either sudo or su dpkg or rpm to actually install it.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[dilvish_the_damned]

From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""

What really belongs in the OS is a self-defense mechanism against malware and viruses, but for whatever reason Microsoft has chosen to let bottom feeders like Symantec live.

Anti-virus should be an included part of the OS along with updates. It's addressing flaws in the product.

Fixing their own lunch does not seem to interest them as much as stealing someone elses.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[twiddlingbits]

The problem with building it into Hardware is it limits the flexibility of the Hypervisor to only support what is defined on the chip. I assume you can reprogram the chip (it's Flash right?).

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[tsm_sf]

if you run the browser in its own VM (on top of a minimal, secure OS)

Which part of that sentence fragment spells doom for Microsoft's foray into this field?

((as an aside, it's becoming obvious that MS has no long term goals other than being the biggest fish in the pond. Imagine what someone with a direction could do with a company like that...what a waste))

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Bizzeh]

wait, microsoft DID do this self defence system, that blocked anything from hooking the kernel, and various other parts of the OS, which prevented malware from entering, but the bottom feeders at Symantec. and hippies that didnt like this idea the world over, did nothing but complain, and force MS to remove this, to allow virii to enter, so Symantec had something to do.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[UncleTogie]

Macs and Linux/UNIX machines will never have the same problem even if they become as popular as Windows is today because the virus/trojan culture cannot get sufficient traction to be successfully propogated in sufficient numbers to make it worthwhile.
....

Uh, isn't someone forgetting The Worm of '88?

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[kabz]

Seems like Microsoft Windows is just starting to be regarded as a giant, expensive to configure application that runs Office, and a few other corporately vital apps.

As such, it makes complete sense to commoditize it by treating it as an app to run in a virtual machine.

I already have my XP virtualized in Parallels, where it is occasionally fired up to run IE controls. Windows is so delicate, and such a pain to configure, that it makes complete sense to make one image then deploy it using virtualization.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[MS-06FZ]

OK, that's one. Now, anything within the last, say, fifteen years? :)

(Really, I think you're right, and Unix users shouldn't get too complacent, especially as the system becomes more complex with the addition of new features. But I thought it was funny that the example you cited of a Unix vulnerability was from almost twenty years ago... Shirley, there must be comparable examples from modern times, right?)

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[UncleTogie]

Shirley, there must be comparable examples from modern times, right?
Not off the top of my head....



...and don't call me Shirley.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[plalonde2]

The anti-virus products are actually the virus. They drain more system and system administration resources than the viruses they block (and do *nothing* against the others) and their presence lets the OS vendors who should be dealing with security issues directy shirk that duty. Symantec and co. are the problem, not its cure.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Locutus]

The sad thing is, if you try to tell a Microsoft shop that they should run a Linux HOST under the VM platform they'll say they have no experience with Linux and then go for MS Windows as the host. And telling them that they don't interface with the host OS much at all only gets blank stares as they reach for the Windows install CD.

If it's the fear of thinking they'll look like fools in the vast unknown of Linux or wanting the comfort of knowing that any problems they'll have with Windows as the host will be the same problems others are having. Don't know but it happens far far more than you probably think.

This is the initial advantage Microsoft has. Throw the VM tech into the OS and it's even easier to NOT make a choice and go with the lesser product. What we need is a Knoppix-like distro which installs Xen or VMware Server and provides the remote management clients on the CD also( Linux, Windows, Mac ). Make it braindead easy to create a VM server and see how easy it is to manage and create/install VMs.

LoB

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[paulsnx2]

VMWare forces one to ask, "What exactly is an OS?" I sort of know what an application is (it looks like a word processor or a video game), and I know what a storage system is (it looks like a file system or a database), and I know what a UI is (it looks like Windows, or Swing, or XWindows).

But when I can take an entire configuration of a computer and pack it up with a virtual machine like VMWare and deploy it in a lump.... Where is the OS? Didn't I just convert the whole OS/Application/Storage think into just another application?

Isn't that exactly what MS is afraid of, Vista is just another application?

An Operating System today doesn't really exist as a unique computational concept. It is simply another way to package software libraries (and all the UI support) and make all this code available to applications to use. There is certainly a component of the OS that provides the interfaces between programs and the hardware, but!!! what VMWare demonstrates is that managing the hardware interfaces is a pretty trivial part of today's Operating Systems.

What bothers MS but what most folks don't realize is that VMWare provides us a preview of the future of Operating Systems: Just do the hardware support job, and leave the rest to whatever approach the developer wants to take to build and configure their application.

The power to reduce the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) is to pull all the software libraries out of the OS and package them together in the application. This is radical because all the Software types and everything we have learned has told us that we can abstract all the problems of programming into some other space where "everything becomes easy". If you have "the right" OS with the "right" framework, and everyone follows "the plan", then configuration problems don't happen, viruses don't happen, and the sun shines brightly on us all!!

The real world has been pretty rough on such dreams.

Instead, we need mechanisms to configure and deploy components in a reliable fashion to a number of systems. Those systems need to have what they need. That is what VMWare does without restricting developers to one vendor or one approach. And as our computers begin to have dozens if not hundreds of independent cores, we are going to start doing such deployments within a single machine right there on the desktop/laptop.

The future isn't with Operating Systems. The future is Configuration Systems.

And VMWare is closer to the future than Microsoft.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Locutus]

IIRC, someone is already using VMs to handle spyware and antivirus on Windows. From what I remember, they ran a VM running Linux and some filtering software and hooked the network traffic from the ethernet port to the VM and somehow connected the filtered stream back to Windowsland.

The idea was probably to use a less corruptable platform for the network traffic filtering without requiring an external computer to do this. I thought it was quite cool. I also always laugh at anyone attempting to declare their MS Windows box is fine because they run a MS Windows based firewall but still use MS Windows email, MS Windows IE browser, etc.

LoB

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Locutus]

That's right, Microsoft is a Marketing company and has no interest in making their product better faster cheaper. And it is because of this that Microsoft Windows server have a one-application per server configuration and let's not forget the 2nd replicated copy to keep uptime acceptable.

You'd think that Microsoft would still be happy with the situation where a whole bunch of licensed copies of MS Windows were running on one box since they'd still be getting their software sales. But, the problem comes up when you see that the market leading VM company puts Linux under the VMs and shimming anything between Microsoft Windows and the hardware is a massive threat to the marketing preople at Microsoft.

It doesn't hurt that running Linux in those VMs is pretty easy too so that's another reason for Microsoft to want to crush this market as soon as possible and at any cost.

And as you stated, it's all because Windows sucks as a server and doesn't virtualize process or memory well enough to keep apps from crashing the OS. Heck, I remember in the '80s and '90s how UNIX servers were handling/serving dozens of applications. In the late '90s and '00s, Microsoft Windows servers were like reproducing like Tribbles or maybe more like Gremlins in a Seattle rain shower. :-/

VMs are a major threat to Microsoft. Just show someone a pre-configured Linux VM on Windows in VMware Player and watch their face. If they are a developer, you'll hear gears moving too.

LoB

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[teh_chrizzle]

From the article: "When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system.""

Virtualization belongs below the operating system, let's say in the BIOS.

that depends on what kind of virtualization you want. there are differnet kinds, based on what you want to do.

i think that he is saying that you should run your virtualization stuff at the os level, ala openVZ.

i guess it goes without saying that "virtualization" is *such* an overloaded term now a days that you can never be sure what anyone is talking about anymore.

in a nutshell, OS level virtualization (according to the these folks) means that the OS itself is virtualized instead of the hardware which is the vmware/ms virtual server way. OS level virtualization means that you run one OS, and each virtual environment is a container with a "private" instance of that OS... like a root jail on steroids.

what you end up with is a bunch of instances of the same OS. the virtual servers are shielded from eachother, and the host shielded from the virtual servers, but the virtual servers are not necessarily shielded from the host. the key difference is that all of them, virtual server and host alike, are running the same kernel. they don't run copies of the same kernel, they all talk to the same running kernel. this means simpler setup and administration and more efficient use of disk, cpu and memory thanks to reduced redundancy in hardware and operating system emulation and/or abstraction. openVZ pretty much lets you run a bunch of iterations of the same OS, but with different applications, users, IPs, etc.

you essentially are giving up the ability to run arbitrary guest OS's in exchange for simpler configuration and more efficient use of resources.

it seems to me that OS level virtualization (instead of hardware/hypervisor virtualization) is more along the lines of what MS would want, which is people buying lots of windows licenses, or just paying up for the most expensive version of windows so they can virtualize to the fullest extent of their hardware's capabilities.

i think that this might be the first step to competing with VMWare and all the others that let you run windows servers on linux. one way to improve stability in anything is to reduce the number of things that it does. the weird language in vista about using licenses in virtualization might be the precursor to the different tiers for the next iteration of windows server where buying the top level OS grants you the licensing freedom to many virtualized servers on the same machine.

what will be most interesting is if active directory and the like will change... will you still be required you to run DNS and other services on your AD server? or, will you be able to off load those services to "smaller" single function virtual servers?

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[ocbwilg]

The sad thing is, if you try to tell a Microsoft shop that they should run a Linux HOST under the VM platform they'll say they have no experience with Linux and then go for MS Windows as the host. And telling them that they don't interface with the host OS much at all only gets blank stares as they reach for the Windows install CD.

You might be a bit right on that. But I've personally always thought of ESX (or at least since I first heard of it) as an application rather than an OS. I know that it's not, strictly speaking, but it is different enough from a standard Linux install to make Windows people feel like they're using an application, while still keeping enough of the Linux-based nature that Linux admins can really get into it. But it would definitely be incorrect to actually think of it as Linux. I learned that the hard way when I needed drivers for a disk array that were available for Linux but not for ESX.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[TapeCutter]

I agree entirely, where I currently work we make heavy use of VM's for testing purposes. 10yrs ago managing test configurations and test machines was an expensive nightmare for any multi-platform product, nowadays it is done with a couple of servers and a bunch of VM's. It's still expensive in labour but not so much of a nightmare to reproduce various software environments.

MS will attempt to "absorb" the virtualization bussiness but I can't see software shops simply dumping their existing VM's for a "faulty by design" offering.

Re:Virtualization in the OS?

[Monsuco]

And Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor

Well, then again, neither does apple.

Everybody now

[myopiate]

(chorus) Switch to GNU/Linux.

Re:Everybody now

[ThePhilips]

On other news, I have just assembled myself VIA'a Mini-ITX system for whooping 325€ and installed Linux on it.

Let's compare. Real mini PC + Linux at price of 325€: small, noiseless so it can be put on book shelf and be forgotten about.

Now VMWare/Windows virtualization: VMWare Workstation/Player $190/$0 + M$Windows XP Home/XP Pro/Vista $100/$200/$250. (*) The modern full featured offering (VMWare Wrkst + Vista) would set you off for $190+$250=$430.

Can anybody explain me advantages of virtualization? You get indecent performance for heavy bill. So what the deal breaker???

(*) Linux option is removed since VMware constantly breaks Linux guest support. And vmware-tools are broken too.

Re:Everybody now

[tomstdenis]

Get back to us when you have 100s of VMs to host. 100s of mini pcs or a dozen or so servers ... hmm ...

Sure if your goal is just to have a toy OS box, a dedicated PC is the way to go, always has been. But if you're hosting multiple VMs that's not the way to go.

Tom

Re:Everybody now

[deadlocked]

Unfortunately hardware and software is often much cheaper than human labour. Same as with optimizing code: its often cheaper to buy faster hardware than spend developer time

Re:Everybody now

[ocbwilg]

(chorus) Switch to GNU/Linux.

You know, I toyed with the idea of modding your post down as overrated, but then I thought that it made more sense to explain why rather than just do it. To put it simply, not everybody can switch to GNU/Linux for their datacenters. In a lot of vertical markets the only products available (or at least the best products available) run on Windows. Even if there may be a reasonable GNU/Linux alternative available there can be a significant barrier to entry in the form of long-term contracts, or an entrenched user base numbering in the thousands. Let's be realistic here, for many companies (especially larger companies, the type that are most likely to use virtualization) it's not simply a matter of swapping out Vista and Office for Ubuntu and OpenOffice, and then tying it together with OpenLDAP on the back end.

In my case I work for a software company that develops enterprise application software that is used by most banks, insurance companies, and large manufacturers. We actually started as a Unix-only application, but eventually we had to start developing for Windows simply because that's what the market place demanded. Now we develop and support on both platforms. Our in-house datacenter is heavily virtualized, and our servers are split roughly 50% Windows and 50% Linux/UNIX. Phasing out Windows in our case would not only be incredibly stupid, it would literally kill the company.

Don't get me wrong, OSS is great. We use it a lot, and it has it's place. But it is not some sort of magic bullet, and it definitely is not the answer to every IT-related question.

Re:Everybody now

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure it's SO much more efficient to run 100 VMs on one host for every task. That way you have to duplicate the base operating system every time, you have to duplicate memory for the file cache, you have to duplicate about everything.

Instead of installing 80GB memory, I'd rather simply run all services on one system. You can always run them in chroot jails, as different users, or if you're really paranoid, use OpenBSD instead of Linux. But all that is MUCH more efficient than having 100 VMs with at least 128MB memory EACH.

Re:Everybody now

[tomstdenis]

Many hosting companies provide a "cheaper" hosting solution by giving you a VM instead of a physical box. Inside the VM you can do anything you want, turn on/off services, etc. Something you can't do with a chroot jail, especially when you have the possibility of conflicting with services (e.g. mysql on port what now?).

The actual databases and what not aren't always hosted in the VM. Smart providers would sell DB access to which doesn't run inside the VM. Also I should point out that most worthwhile VMs are light on the CPU when idle. So you could easily host a dozen low-volume hosts on a single box.

If you're getting the load of, say, slashdot, chances are you can also afford dedicated boxes. But for many who just want a presence on the web, it's a cheap and environmentally friendlier way to do it.

Tom

Re:Everybody now

[ThePhilips]

Get back to us when you have 100s of VMs to host.

Get back to us when you have really managed 100s of VMs.

Actual state of management software is ... poor. On other side, the people who have developed their own management for cheap (e.g. blade) hosts farms - feel least urge to switch to VMs from real hosts. For well managed environment with redundant hardware it is really waste to burn CPU cycles of emulation. (*)

VMs solve no particular problem, but just propagate problem of poor OS management to another level - hardware/emulated hardware.

Needless to add, people did the same under Linux for ages with User-Mode-Linux and (what now is called) Xen. But again, the solutions to be manageable heavily rely on the fact that guest and host systems are the very same Linux (with little differences on kernel side).

In the end, when box is plain hardware you can always pull the plug. Try to emulate that with compromised/erroneous VM which started hogging all system resources from other VMs - and management interface too.

(*) Okay, I know the post is pointless, since CPU cycles are now the cheapest resource. But yet, even to my surprise, there are people who care about how fit their systems are and do not tolerate another layer which in hardware/software solves OSs problems.

Re:Everybody now

[Tim C]

I work at a web agency/hosting/application management company, and we're starting to move from dedicated separate boxes to VMs on a single, beefy box for our dev and test servers. That way we can have two machines hosting (typically) two load-balanced web/app servers and a database server, rather than 6. (In reality, in dev at least we'd skip the load-balancing and any associated clustering to save on hardware)

It takes up less space in the hosting centre (thus reducing hosting costs) and our machine room, it costs less in hardware (even with the VMWare licences and beefier boxes, and we mostly use Linux as the server OS) and costs less in power.

I can't comment on management issues (as I'm a developer), but the set up on my last project has been running for about 18 months with very very few issues.

Re:Everybody now

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>VMs solve no particular problem

Sooooo..... How many boxes do YOU have and what is their average utilization? Study after study confirms that average utilization is very low in the typical corporate data center. And that is not an OS problem, it is a consequence that most of today's apps in the data center are over-served by Moore's law. There are exceptions of course, HPC being one of them. So if you're like most people, VMs are the way to go.

Re:Everybody now

[ThePhilips]

I had experience only on "stress testing" side.

I was helping my friend to test piece of monstrous hardware/software (with something like 128 CPU cores). Linux was very very bad on the system - both as guest and as host. (IIRC, configuration was 64 VMs 2x systems.) Windows was piece of cake to install - just to discover that beside easy installation the cluster wasn't being able to perform a single task decently. Some tests which took several hours under Linux went to days under Windows.

Worst part was that overall performance (the number as measured by my friend) we really really terrible: on average Linux performed about two times slower compared to theoretical limit (== performance of standalone dual core box multiplied by 128) and Windows performed about four times slower. (It seemed Windows implementation of software required more memory and thus required heavier compared to Linux swapping. Thus drop of performance.) (*)

That wasn't any kind of scientific test - the question was "is it possible at all?". Yes, it is. Is it usable for anything? Probably. In such systems, everything - I/O, RAID, RAM - becomes bottleneck. IOW, choose your tasks wisely.

(*) But again, if hardware management costs (NOT hardware costs) are prime factor, then installing two/four such systems might be an answer. It is still two/four blade racks compared to N racks of 1/2Us+ required for real hosts (with all extra infrastructure required).

Re:Everybody now

[0racle]

Linux option is removed since VMware constantly breaks Linux guest support. And vmware-tools are broken too

Running VMware on Linux hosts primarily for Linux guests I have yet to see VMware break Linux guest support or the vmware-tools. Try again.

Re:Everybody now

[myopiate]

Woah there my trigger happy friend. No need shoot any M$onsters with magic silver bullets. I don't know who's trying to sell you them, but I recommend you keep away. If we keep shooting them silver bullets, our house will eventually fall down from all them holes we shot into it. My post was just to keep watering that seed in the minds of slashdotters. Alternatives to Windows software appear all the time and it could be just about time to have another look at your systems and where those real needs and costs are.

Re:Everybody now

[Anonymous Coward]

lol, did you even read his post? If he went open sources he would loose his business.

Re:Everybody now

[zero time ghost]

I manage 100s of VMs with VMWare's Virtual Infrastructure, and I call bullshit on your whole post my good man.

"Actual state of management software is ... poor. On other side, the people who have developed their own management for cheap (e.g. blade) hosts farms - feel least urge to switch to VMs from real hosts. For well managed environment with redundant hardware it is really waste to burn CPU cycles of emulation. (*)"

The actual state of the management software is excellent. Have you used Virtual Center 3? Care to elaborate with your details? I can: it's easy to organize a huge farm of VM's, prioritize them based on their CPU and RAM needs, move VMs from one physical host to another on the fly, generate alerts on nearly anything and customize actions based on those alerts, on and on. There is only one thing I don't like so far about VC/VI, and that is how LUNs on the ESX hosts are managed.

"VMs solve no particular problem, but just propagate problem of poor OS management to another level - hardware/emulated hardware."

It solves two problems off the top of my head: hardware proliferation, and hardware failure.

We have a glut of CPU speed and RAM space, but the chasses surrounding those chips are still expensive. Not just expensive in terms of the box itself, but in the cost of powering and cooling the server as well as the spacial cost of having it in the rack. The solution is to have one physical server do more than one job. The way to do that safely and sanely is to virtualize.

Another major problem VMs solve is hardware failure. Right now, in my own virtual datacenter, I pretty much don't care about anything less than a whole blade going down. If there is a single blip in the hardware, Virtual Infrastructure migrates the VMs off of the faulty hardware automatically, *without interrupting the VMs*. In other words, for 99% of all hardware failures, my VMs keep running and I can swap out the bad physical server without disturbing anything. Zero downtime. I still cluster at the OS level, too, so in reality I am only worried about my whole datacenter being nuked. Similarly, I don't care too much about hardware replacement cycles anymore either. When a warranty expires, I push all the VMs off of the box and unrack it. We unpack the replacement box, rack it & install ESX, and that's it. The Virtual Center will automatically shuffle VMs onto the new hardware.

"In the end, when box is plain hardware you can always pull the plug. Try to emulate that with compromised/erroneous VM which started hogging all system resources from other VMs - and management interface too."

Hehe. 'You try to open the door, but *there's too much blood on the knob!*' You are defining an extremely specific problem and treating it like it's a general issue with virtualization, but I will play along.

Here is what would happen in my environment. First the VC would automatically migrate all of the other VMs away from the crazy VM. Once the crazy VM was isolated, I could pull the plug on the box if I felt like that was my only option. Then I would activate a clone of the VM (I clone every freshly minted server and put the clone on ice--try doing that with nothing but "OS management"), restore data from backup if necessary, and away we go on an fresh, uncompromised server. Meanwhile I can go back and examine the crazy VM at my leisure and have it completely sandboxed.

The state of the art in virtualization is not a single server running a few linux instances, sir. Check out where VMWare (and probably Microsoft) is heading and you will see that things are rapidly evolving. I'm talking a quantum leap in datacenter management here, the biggest thing since commodity hardware.

Re:Everybody now

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't care if you use a VM or not but I can tell your opinions are not data center based.
I can tell you several advantages of using VM's though.

First and formost when thinking virtual is not every server and every server process makes sense running in a virtual environment. VMWare provides tools and guidance for you to determine if a specific server you have running right now at your site is a good candidate. No one ever claimed everything should be run virtualized. Basically, consistent high disk I/O, mem, or cpu is not a good candidate. Sounds like every server ever deployed would be a bad candidate but you would be surprised how many machine sit there not doing much. Remember, we are talking average IT infastructure here, not Yahoo's DB servers and not youtubes file servers.

We are talking about dhcp servers, fax servers, domain controllers, document indexing servers, access control or RAS servers, SQL, management stations, smtp scanning servers, virus management consoles, web monitoring like Websense, document management servers, message routing servers, Blackberry and Blackberry attachment servers, IT stuff like backup exec or whatever backup solution you use. Portal front ends and auth servers for public wireless access, Citrix front ends like Nfuse, Outlook Web access... The list goes on and on and on.

Consolidation of hardware and redundancy of those types of servers are easier and cheaper with a virtual solution.
I'll use MS clusters for an example. Assume you have a DHCP, SQL, Exchange, and a file server for an office of 600 people. You could have one physical server for each node of the cluster and one virtual node for the second node. The virtual server can be spec'd out to meet the demand of the highest of those four servers (most likely Exchange). Now, you have a two cluster node for each of those servers listed above for the cost of one physical server. Each has redundancy that you did not have before.

Take it a few steps further now. Lets say you want to run some utility servers on the VM servers as well. Trend micro virus scanning, an Enterprise Blackberry server, and some cost recovery system that accounting needs. Those can be placed on that SAME Virtual server. Now you have your second nodes of the cluster and some actual active servers running as well.
Take it one more step.. You add a second virtual server because you are expanding and you want redundacy with the virtual servers. You now add 5-15 more virtual machines and the total of 20 machines can be shared between the two virtual servers. VMWare provides tools for automatically moving virtual machines between virtual servers while running to balance load across all virtual servers.

Assue a year from now, you want to add a third virtual server but decide to get a much larger unit from IBM instead of Dell. Wow, different HD controllers, different network cards, different video. Windows 2003 is going to freak out and not work on that new server. Oh wait, the hardware is virtualized through VMWare and the virtual machines can move back and forth with NO problems.

One note, A SAN or common storage is required to move and share virtual machines between virtual servers.

We have two HP DL380's with 8GB ram running 8 virtual machines each and we are getting more Virtual servers as our leases expire on our physical servers. There are numerous possibilities of things we can do, specially with the ability to assign a virtual machine to a different VM network switch which may be on a different vlan or even a different network segment all together. We can manage and deploy servers to our public and private lan from the same place.

Think of virtualization for the typcial IT department in the business world, not an ISP or a data providers or developers world.

A side note. If you have more then one virtual server running the same OS, as much of the memory as possible is shared between the running virtual machines. In laymans terms, if you are running sol.exe o

Re:Everybody now

[Locutus]

I didn't quite get that since he said they make software for banks/etc. If they have a 50/50 customerbase on Windows/*nix it would be stupid to stop one or the other. But, if there were advantages to their customers for one over the other it might make sense for their marketing people to let those customers know about it. This is unlikely since it's far more likely that their marketing people are Windows freaks and would be lost on the *nix side of the sale.

Anyways, the fact that they don't sell an OS but sell their apps makes no sense that there would be any kind of profit loss if their customers went with Linux under the hood for some reason or another. If their application is a desktop application then it's going to be a very hard sell getting them to put *nix on those desktops if they do anything else besides run their app on that desktop. Something their marketing people are not going bring up.

Pulling the rug out from one market or the other would be silly but I would guess that with the growth of Linux, they should see some growth in that segment. Cost wise, there is no longer the large financial difference between WindowsPCs and LinuxPCs like there was with the UNIX systems.

LoB

Re:Everybody now

[Jumpy]

What if you need to run crappy Windows license servers with dongles and the company that makes said software doesn't provide a Linux version? We've got several of those right now and we are trying to virtualize them. It seems like M$ is trying to make people like us pay more money if we want to run a virtual M$ license server and move it to another machine. For those license servers that run on Unix, we already run them there. But there are some companies that don't do any software on Unix/Linux.

Re:Everybody now

[Anonymous Coward]

Please MOD Parent UP!

Re:Everybody now

[dave562]

Mod this guy up. He obviously works with the stuff and understands it.

Re:Everybody now

[jp10558]

I haven't personally tried this, so I may be wrong and VMWare marketing is talking out of their @ss, but what ESX server and VMotion lets you do is take RAID/hotswap to a whole new level, so you can hotswap out entire servers without actual downtime. Before these sorts of things were available, I believe you'd need mainframe level hardware to swap out CPUs/systemboards without taking down the services.

Of course the question is do you save money in using ESX server + several commodity servers vs Mainframe? I suppose it depends, but I could see major benefits in being able to migrate over NT4 services to more reliable hardware via virtulization as useful, and other legacy apps. Then when your Server2003 machine is finally ready to take over, you're not tossing hardware, you can easily phase out the legacy apps down to some small allocated resources - and it can be dynamic allocation too! More efficient use of hardware there.

Also, there's physical space, cooling, electricity, etc. You may not have room to add an unlimited number of blade servers for every new server you need, you may not have the cooling necessary etc. Virtulization can save on those as well. Finally, there is the ease of moving a virtualized OS - you don't have to deal with sysprep or the linux equivelent to move it to different hardware.

Sigh...

[djupedal]

"This seems to be a far more subtle, informed and polished form of competitive aggression"

Just wait a bit - I'm sure that by the time it hits the front page and the dust settles, it will prove to only be another example of the heavy-handed recidivism we've all come to expect out of redmond. MS can't innovate...can't spot new markets...can't ignore a plum in someone else's grasp, without the targeting systems being brought online. '...Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor'

As has been said in the past - investing in MS is asking to have your own money used against you in the marketplace.

Re:Sigh...

[scsirob]

MS may not have an obligation to facilitate it's competitors, but they are damn well obliged to facilitate their customers.

Since MS wants to play in the high-end comuting environment, they must play nice with the computing wishes of these demanding users or they will be dropped like a hot potatoe by datacenters. VMWare is currently the only real game in town for datacenter consolidation, MS Virtual Server and XEN are waaay behind.

Re:Sigh...

[gnalre]

Actually I thought ever since MS was found to be a de-facto monopoly they did in fact have a legal requirement to help there competitors. For example anti-virus firms, even though MS has its own MS product,

Re:Sigh...

[ConceptJunkie]

I think you mean they have a legal requirement not to unfairly hinder their competitors, not that that changes anything. The monopoly conviction and subsequent "punishment" were a slap on the wrist.

I've come to feel that the net effect of Microsoft's business practices is the same as those of the **AA, it is as if they hate their customers, because they are more concerned with attack their competition that serving the customers.

Of course, in the case of the **AA, they really do hate their customers but that's another rant.

Re:Sigh...

[jez9999]

or they will be dropped like a hot potatoe by datacenters

Ah... another graduate from the Dan Quayle school of spelling.

Re:Sigh...

[Belial6]

Go get 5 dictionaries that predate the "Dan Quayle" incident, and look up the word "potatoe". Then do a search on "Sweet Potatoe". You will find that Dan Quayle wasn't so bad of a speller after all. You will also have to start questioning your own ability to spell, as well as that of every news reporter of the time.

I know you will say "But sweet potatoe is a different word". Well, sweet is the adjective that is used with the noun potatoe. it shows an area where the language cleansing failed to notice the un-wording of potatoe.

I know it doesn't really matter, but the removal of potatoe as a correct spelling for the purposes of discrediting a political figure is as 1984 as you can get.

Re:Sigh...

[Profane MuthaFucka]

Absolutely right. Dan Quayle was FAR better than George Bush. I'm right with you, my brother. On another topic, I'm curious about your views of wife-beating, slave owning, and the proper way to wear an automatic firearm at a picnic. I am certain that you are an expert on all those subjects, so please help me to learn.

MS up to its old tricks.

[countach]

Microsoft is pissing everyone off again. I'm running Vista Home Premium here on my Mac under vmware because I've got an app that I need to run once in a blue moon. I tried Crossover, but it doesn't work reliably for me. But like as if I'm going to spend $AUD 700 for Vista ultimate for a bunch of features I could care less about.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

> But like as if I'm going to spend $AUD 700 for Vista ultimate for a bunch of features I could care less about.

Sounds to me like you might very well spend the $AUD 700. Unless, of course, you couldn't care less about the features.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[countach]

What the hell are you talking about?

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

http://wsu.edu/~brians/errors/care.html

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

Microsoft is pissing everyone off again. I'm running Vista Home Premium here on my Mac under vmware because I've got an app that I need to run once in a blue moon.

Why don't you use XP? Do share with us the vista-specific app you must run on your mac.

I tried Crossover, but it doesn't work reliably for me. But like as if I'm going to spend $AUD 700 for Vista ultimate for a bunch of features I could care less about.

Hold on. $AUD? I thought Australians said couldn't care less?

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[countach]

>Why don't you use XP? Do share with us the vista-specific app you must run on your mac.

It's not Vista specific. But more than likely, in three years time, the latest version of this app WILL be Vista specific. And since I had to buy a version of Windows, and I'll be damned if I want to give MS more money in three years time, I bought Vista. What is your attitude problem?

>Hold on. $AUD? I thought Australians said couldn't care less?

Huh??? I couldn't care less about the features of Windows Ultimate. Damned if I want to give MS more money because of their stupid "no VM" clause, when I'll be making minimal use of it.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[anduz]

Microsoft is pissing everyone off again. I'm running Vista Home Premium here on my Mac under vmware...

It seems like a somewhat bitter effort to get yourself upset over something that works, and might even continue to do so far a long time as the article seems to indicate.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[postbigbang]

Boo hoo.

You have a nice Mac. It runs lots of things nicely. You can use Parallels if you absolutely must run the app. If the app only runs in Vista and not in prior editions of the OS, that would be the first one of those that I've seen.

Just because your Mac won't run VIsta is no fault of the Mac, or VIsta. It's merely a lack of convenience specifically for you.

Use Parallels or just reboot and stop whining. If you're this easily pissed off, please seek professional help.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[countach]

>Just because your Mac won't run VIsta is no fault of the Mac,
>or VIsta. It's merely a lack of convenience specifically for you.

Ahh, but it does run Vista under vmware. Perfectly fine in fact.
What it doesn't run is MS's brain dead licence agreement.

Do try brushing up on your comprehension skills, which are also brain
dead.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[countach]

Idiot boy, I didn't say "I could care less", I said "I couldn't care less".

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

But like as if I'm going to spend $AUD 700 for Vista ultimate for a bunch of features I could care less about.
[...]

Idiot boy, I didn't say "I could care less", I said "I couldn't care less".

Uh huh.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sorry but you infact did say, and I quote you literally: "... for Vista ultimate for a bunch of features I could care less about."

Everything you say here is recorded... can't deny it.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[postbigbang]

And so you have to pony up a few more bucks to buy Ultimate instead of home. Go on eBay or CL and find a Saturday night special tinker toy that runs XP. Problem solved for less than US$100.

One more time: boo hoo. Try Parallels. You might like it. It would go well with your w(h)ine. Yeah, the restrictive license sucks. But those that make the software get to call the tune whether we as consumers like it or not. The way to get them, and the only way to get them, is to not buy the stuff. The only place where they feel pain is in their wallet.... or stock price-- these are the only two nerve endings they have.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Look who is calling who an idiot. You did say you 'could care less'. Idiot.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Paradigm_Complex]

I wouldn't consider his recommendation of XP an attitude problem. XP doesn't have the legal issues about virtualization. When you complained that Microsoft charges so much money to allow virtualization, you completely left out a far more practical, legal possibility. In three years, check back to see if Microsoft still has the same stance on virtualization with vista (TFA points out Microsoft is having issues, and may have to change their stance). Additionally, three years after Win2k everything ran fine on Win2k. Almost everything still does. I'm not convinced that XP will be completely outdated then, either. I love complaining about Microsoft, but your particular complaint is baseless.

Re:MS up to its old tricks.

[Anonymous Coward]

Non sequitur. "Could care less" does not imply "cares enough to spend $AUD 700". Maybe he cares enough to spend $AUD 10. In that case, if he cared less he might still care enough to spend $AUD 5.

Quasinominative Determinism

[ettlz]

Andrew I. Gavil, a law professor

I wonder if he has judicial ambitions.

Re:Quasinominative Determinism

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

All a judge needs to say is that MS has no business telling people what they can or can't run it on after they buy it. Be it a PC, VMWare, toaster, or shoe box.

Re:Quasinominative Determinism

[value_added]

I wonder if he has judicial ambitions.

Who cares?

What's far more interesting is that someone can fashion a construct like quasinominative determinism and use it in a Slashdot article. ;-)

Re:Quasinominative Determinism

[Brad Eleven]

No one else got the pun??? I mean, who's his aspiring TA, Justin Case?

Re:Quasinominative Determinism

[Tim Browse]

I got it, but remember kids: puns are bad, but poems are verse.

Re:Quasinominative Determinism

[martyros]

When I was young, our family ophtamolagist was named Ivan Doctor.

That's right -- Dr. I. Doctor, the eye doctor.

Not news

[paganizer]

It's not as if anyone in charge of a datacenter is going to be foolish enough to run Vista; most places that require things to work have a predominance of Windows 2000 server, with a few win2k3, Win NT4 and OS/2 boxes.
banks and government won't touch it; heck, the U.S. Military made it a criminal offense to run Windows XP on a secured network, until microsoft bribed them with a few thousand essentially free licenses.

Re:Not news

[scoot80]

can you support that with a link? Making running windows XP on a secured network a criminal offense?

Re:Not news

[David Gerard]

Or Wine. We use Wine to run an obscure piece of Windows crapware written by a company that's out of business. The current Wine versions are surprisingly good. If shifting off Windows is being held back by one piece of crapware, it's really really worth seeing if you can beat Wine into running it.

Re:Not news

[paganizer]

No, I apparently can not. There doesn't seem to be a link out there; however, this is what my memory can serve up. When XP came out, DOD CERT checked it, and said that it should not be used on any network where classified material was available; after SP1, they checked it again, and still it was banned. I left government work for a while after that, and did not keep up with it. Then, about 3 years ago, a friend was wanting to get my opinion on some laptops he was getting for his unit; he forwarded me a link to the systems, and they only came with XP home, I told him that as far as I remembered, XP was not allowed. He said that a few months back, Microsoft had done a big deal with the folks at the pentagon who do the policy on what is allowed, and after something like 3 million XP licenses were added to the deal, the security restriction from DOD CERT went away. This could be some really good mental memory hallucination, I DO hate XP and the way that MS has tried to kill Win2k in its favor, but I'm pretty sure that was the deal; I have to think that someone else on /. remembers it. NOTE: there are some posts that come up on google referencing this, but they do not provide an informational link to a press report or anything like that.

Re:Not news

[Anonymous Coward]

Not true. Windows 2000 is out of support, so most sensible shops are running most on Win2003. Not all are running SP1 or R2 yet. But installing Win2000 is plain stupid, and upgrading is part of daily sysadm tasks.

Unsupported software will cause external audit to put red marks in the company audit report.

Re:Not news

[Jherek Carnelian]

You are confusing a restriction with a rating under specific conditions. XP (and/or NT) was rated to a specific level (probably C2) in a specific configuration. When the DoD certifies a system, they do it only for a specific configuration.

In this case, the configuration was with the network turned off. But just because that was the way it was rated does not mean each site is going to run it that way. Merely having the rating for one specific configuration is often enough to give a site security admin enough CYA to approve the system for use in a different configuration.

Having seen this stuff happen for a while, it is my opinion that the vast majority of government security work is checking off check-boxes without actually engaging the brain to decide if the intent represented by the check-box is really being followed or not.

Re:Not news

[paganizer]

I only have firsthand experience with two major shops in the last 6 months; A Military Command that I'm not going to ID, and a bank that I'm not going to ID. Both have around 600+ computers networked; both use, predominantly, Win2k. The main part of a sysadm's task is to make sure the network works; you don't change to a known to be inferior platform like XP for a technicality, and you don't "upgrade" to Windows 2003 just because it exists; unless you have drank the koolaid and are running apps that require win2k3 to function. (note: I have nothing against win2k3. It is a nice server package, and if I couldn't use win2k s or AS for whatever reason, I would be happy to use it) Nearly everything that Microsoft has done in the last 6 years has been in an effort to remedy their biggest mistake, releasing the best not unix or derivitave client/server operating system out there, win2k.

...doomed to repeat it

[Anonymous Coward]

"We set out to partner with Microsoft," said Peter Levine, president of XenSource, "and VMware chose to compete with Microsoft."

Because partnering with Microsoft in a space they want to own has always been a workable strategy, right? Apparently Mr. Levine has been either been asleep for the last ten years, or is determined to be happy with whatever crumbs Microsoft throws him before the poison takes hold.

Re:...doomed to repeat it

[Anonymous Coward]

Citrix managed to do it just fine. They have a $1BN business built on partnering.

No VMs? Fine.

[bmo]

Then I guess Ballmer sees no profit in people running Windows in Parallels, either.

Isn't one customer's money as good as another? I guess not.

The management of Microsoft is so myopic and short sighted they can be declared legally blind.

--
BMO

You're just driving me away Microsoft!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Microsoft, please do something to attract me and make me want to use your software in the enterprise. Licensing crud like this just drives me away to Linux! Don't you realize that your enterprise customers want to use your software? Do you understand that there is a REAL NEED to consolidate servers and simplify the data center? Can't you just concede that just as Windows must be able to host Linux VM's, Linux must be able to host Windows VM's?

You MUST make a VM license for Windows and your software. You HAVE to find a way to allow your customers to move Windows images around and make copies! The more you resist, the easier it will be to justify a wholesale move to Linux. You had better play nice or you will get the boot!

Re:You're just driving me away Microsoft!

[gd23ka]

Dear Customer

Microsoft is committed to providing the solutions our customer need. I have
relayed your request to our customer request department. Thank you for your
interest in Microsoft.

Microsoft Customer Request Submission

Re:No VMs? Fine.

[theundead]

The management of Microsoft is so myopic and short sighted they can be declared legally blind.
I don't think blind people would be very happy with that comment now!

It's Microsoft being themselves

[Vskye]

Same old Microsoft. They can't invent crap anymore, so when a company such as VMware comes out with something that works, is innovative, MS does what they do what they always do best..., restrict the competition. I hate MS just like most /. users, but just once I'd like to see them actually create something original. (yep.. and like that will happen anytime soon)

Re:It's Microsoft being themselves

[Anonymous Coward]

A bit offtopic, but I find it amusing to read about innovating here on /.. When do things get invented ? , in this case , was it when IBM introduced virtualization in the 70's, or when VMware took that idea and made their own version of it ?

Its very rare that any company comes up with something entierly new, that havnt already been done.

MS have a strategy to enter late in the game when the market is established and all IT drones have bought it as a "must have", often with a V1.0 that leave things to desire, and then polish that thing into something that nocks out the competitors.

The XBox beeing the best example in recent years of this.

Re:It's Microsoft being themselves

[BuR4N]

"but just once I'd like to see them actually create something original"

I think your out of line here...there is allot going on in Redmon that must be a "first"...just check these fine examples, no prior art here (no "post art" either)!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clippy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_bob

Re:It's Microsoft being themselves

[jonwil]

There is about as much chance of Microsoft inventing (and more to the point, bringing to the marketplace) a truly unique idea as there is of Exxon Mobil covering the roof of their corporate HQ with solar panels or Lockheed Martin calling for world piece.

Re:It's Microsoft being themselves

[RightSaidFred99]

Go lookup WCF. In a league of its own, all the Java vendors are trying to play catchup.

Bring it on.

[plierhead]

Bring it on Microsoft.

Pissing off the suits that run large data centers and have drunk the virtualization koolaid might just backfire big time for MS. When those execs realise that linux is free to virtualize they'll have a TCO factor bigger than anyone can hide sitting right in front of them. Microsoft will be shafting themselves if they try preventing virtualization.

Re:Bring it on.

[artgeeq]

VMWare ESX is the enterprise-class product from VMWare for the data center. It is not clear that the licensing changes would effect VMWare ESX, which is, I believe, a modified version of Linux that can host many virtual machines, or that they could be enforced.

I tend to agree more with the post, and not so much with the article. This is not like the Netscape fiasco. We are dealing with reliable systems and disaster recovery here, not how information is presented. What scares me a bit is that comeone at the executive level, somewhere, is going to get the idea that the product that is less reliable and less mature is somehow better because of licensing or because it is "free" (and that grunts such as myself will have to painfully explain to them otherwise). The major cost of software, especially this type of software, is not in its initial purchase price.

Re:Bring it on.

[gallwapa]

AFAIK, ESX simply only loads the Linux kernel to load the ESX specific modules, before unloading the linux Kernel. I could be wrong but that was my impression of how it works.

Re:Bring it on.

[Anonymous Coward]

I use VMware ESX 3.1 here and it does make use of Linux (appears to be based on RHEL4), but only as a bootloader and as the "service console". During the boot process, the "vmkernel" takes over and is loaded above the Linux kernel and the Linux "service console" becomes a VM. I could be wrong about this, but this appears to be what it does.

Re:Bring it on.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ya, perhaps in a perfect world that will happen. Not in this world. Suits that run data centers won't move to linux because of this. They certainly will bitch about it, and then pay the price for whatever MS wants.

microsoft is dead

[Anonymous Coward]

that's the only true :)

Xen

[rorre]

There's plenty future in virtualisation. but the approach of VMware is not very forward thinking. MS are workign with Xen, VMware just have sour grapes.

Re:Xen

[pato101]

Let the market decide. The future is the future, and the present is the present.
If MS thinks Xen is the future, OK- MS: invest in Xen and demonstrate it is a better path, but do not change license on purpose to hurt vmware.
I'm afraid, MS will provide special XEN-enabled Windows versions (obviously more expensive ones), and does not want competition in the easy way path.
Nevertheless I did not read the story and I know little about Xen... sorry if I missed the point.

Re:Xen

[Ontology42]

So tell me, how many fully XEN datacenters have you deployed? 100? 1000?

EMC, VMWare's parent just IPO'd 10% of thier shares to double thier market value since EMC really isin't going to move much in the way of market penetration in the next while.

That 10% of VMWare will DOUBLE the value of EMC, from 11 Billion to 22 ~ 24 Billion. Now that bieng said, how many datacenters do you design for a living?

I have for over 10 different clients all with long and short green designed VMWare centralized solutions, don't get me wrong xen is nice but it lacks Virtual Centre or the marketing propaganda to convince the PHB's that they should use it over say Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 or VMWare server.

Not to mention that most of the big reinsurance companies that I've worked with will use a 36 node infiniband connected cluster with 8 CPU's / node all running VMWare Infrastructre as a hosting pool for various mathematically intensive applications, like CAS.

So tout Zen all you want, Moshe Bar is an excellent programmer with many accolyades to his name but I'm not going to be putting it in any of my data center designs anytime soon, my clients deserve better, VMWare just happens to be the oldest kid on the block.

Re:Xen

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that's not a given. Linux is focusing on KVM, which is a paravirtualization with Linux as the hypervisor. VMWare is also supportive of KVM, and focusing on additional features like hard drive images, snapshots, migrating VMs between hardware boxes with zero downtime, etc -- which they already do with their fully-virtualized technology. It's very likely that Microsoft will take a similar approach, with Windows as the hypervisor, since I'm sure they don't like the idea of running underneath another OS.

End result: you can use Xen Hypervisor, Linux+KVM(+VMWare), or Windows(+VMware/VirtualPC) as the host, and either fully virtualize (with VT/Pacifica) an arbitrary x86 OS, fully virtualize with VMWare an arbitrary OS, or paravirtualize Linux (and eventually some future version of Windows). All of these solutions need some way of sharing things like the video card, network card, etc. Xen has lousy host-level driver support. Linux and Windows both already have pretty good driver support.

So the VMWare way is not a whole lot different from the way things are currently headed, and VMWare has been quietly embracing VT/Pacifica and paravirtualization. In the case of hardware support, it works just like VMWare always has, only faster. Whenever they get their paravirtualization working, it'll be more of the same, but again faster.

Re:Xen

[twiddlingbits]

...I'm not going to be putting it in any of my data center designs anytime soon, If you are running the latest release of Solaris 10 you already are. I fully expect Xen to be bought by Sun ASAP.

VMWare Here's a move

[jlebrech]

Buy Cedega!! and Write SQL Server drivers for Mono.

Re:No VMs? Fine.

[mumblestheclown]

microsoft, with its billions, is blind in making strategic business decisions, but you, some slashdot postager, is the one who truly understands what is best for microsoft's business. right.

restricting windows on VMWare?

[apodyopsis]

I'm confused here, maybe some of you poeple who use virtual machines (more than me) can help me out. I've posted a few questions and points I am either interested in, or do not understand..

=============

Where is the boundary between a "virtual machine" and a "real one"?

After all, the BIOS is definately part of the machine/motherboard and thats SW. If there is another layer of SW inbetween your OS and you HW why should that be any different? I would treat a "virtual" machine as essentially the same as a "real" one - surely in the eyes of the law they must be the same, no?

M$ changing the license restrictions seems as though they are essentialy stepping outside the OS box and determining the physical HW you are and are not allowed to run on. Whats the legal situation here, has this been tried and testing in a court?

Can they actually prevent any version of Windows from running in a VM if that version of Windows cannot detect it?

At the end of they day if a court rules a VM and a real PC are legally the same, where would that leave M$?

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[initialE]

Virtual machines are hardware-independent. This means you can easily bypass activation requirements, make unlimited copies relatively easily, migrate the hardware without having to repurchase software, basically bypassing all kinds of physical restrictions you have placed on moving or violating your software licenses. This could be construed as violating DMCA even.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[growse]

But in the same way, my windows desktop at home is hardware independent. If I remove the BIOS chip and hard disk from my computer, and plug it into a different computer with the same components, that's technically a different machine, but you could also say that my windows installation is a physical installation rather than a virtual one. The OS doesn't necessarily know it's running on a different CPU.

In my view, an OS instance is an OS instance. GP is right - what's wrong with just another small SW layer between the hardware and the OS? How does that make what the OS instance is any different?

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[ocbwilg]

Can they actually prevent any version of Windows from running in a VM if that version of Windows cannot detect it?

If it cannot detect the VM then technically, no. But they can legally, then when it comes time to do a license audit they will discover how the licensed software is being used, and you can get dinged.

But I wouldn't put too much faith into them being unable to detect whether they're running in a VM. We were trying to install SP2 to SQL Server 2005 last week on a machine that was runnig on VMWare ESX, and the install failed repeatedly. When we checked the logs there were entries that specifically stated that the SP couldn't be installed in a virtualized environment. So it's certainly detectable. There were some recent articles at the ISC about malware that could detect if it was running in a virtual environment, and there are a number of reliable ways of doing so.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Professor_UNIX]

So it's certainly detectable. There were some recent articles at the ISC about malware that could detect if it was running in a virtual environment, and there are a number of reliable ways of doing so.

VMWare doesn't make any attempt at hiding the fact that you're running in a virtual machine. Where did you get the idea that it did? For example, if you're running a Linux guest, just take a look at the dmesg output after bootup and count the number of times you see VMWare in the list. Go into the Windows hardware device manager and count the number of times you see VMWare in there too. They COULD fake the hardware names returned to the OS and Microsoft would be none the wiser unless they took additional steps to try and figure it out, but they don't. A simple look at the devices attached to the system will quickly show it's a VM.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Tarwn]

I wonder if that is still the case when your running an image on virtualized hardware? We have an old crusty server running some legacy software that is bound to the hardware it is running on. The cojmpany that we purchased that software from no longer exists and our customers keep telling us it is vital to operations and still better than the 3 or 4 revisions all the competition has gone through.
Solution? Virtualize the machine with VMWare. Apparently there is an option to virtualize the hardware to keep the software ignorant of the fact that it has been moved to another server. I wonder, if in this situation, a server is still capable of telling it is virtualized or if it feels it is sitting physiaclly on a server.

I am not a systems admin, I can only relate a solution we have tried in the broadest of details.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[gd23ka]

One reason Microsoft wants to distinguish between a VM and real hardware is that
you can easily observe and tweak a VM from the outside for example by changing
memory or halting and resuming execution. That makes it easier for people to
circumvent their "DRM" antics.

Another reason of course is that the same virtual machine can be copied
and deployed a dozens of times thus circumventing their "Windows Activation" scheme.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[ocbwilg]

VMWare doesn't make any attempt at hiding the fact that you're running in a virtual machine. Where did you get the idea that it did?

I didn't. The post that I responded to asked:

"Can they actually prevent any version of Windows from running in a VM if that version of Windows cannot detect it?"

I responded that it's certainly possible to detect that a machine is virtualized, and cited two examples. It sucks when you actually have to read and comprehend at the same time, eh?

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[MMC Monster]

It leaves them to restrict a OS license to a single virtual machine.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Apparently it sucks even worse when you have to write and comprehend the irrelevance of what you are writing.

In geekland you only get to be an asshole when you are right. Too bad for you, you are wrong.

The OP that you quoted made absolutely no reference to VMware - just to VMs in general. As the other guy said, you made a poor choice in picking VMware to demonstrate that virtualization is always detectable because it does not even try to hide - other virtualization systems DO make the effort to hide -- see the Blue Pill anti-DRM virtualization system for one example.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[ray-auch]

If I remove the BIOS chip and hard disk from my computer, and plug it into a different computer with the same components...

With Vista you will most likely need to reactivate - which is what MS wants.

If you activate on a virtual set of components then you can move to a new physical set of components at will, without reactivation - which is what MS doesn't want.

MS has (half) an argument that virtualisation could subvert the activation stuff (and some of the DRM stuff). The flaw is not in that argument but in the fact that the whole activation-tied-to-hardware thing is fundamentally flawed.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Excors]

VMware engineers also don't put any faith into being able to hide the fact that the guest OS is virtualised. When there are unavoidable holes like timing differences, there's no value in hiding some of the other avoidable holes.

But now they have an answer to the question "congratulations, you now know you're on a VMware Workstation 4.5 VM. What are you going to do about it?"

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Anonymous Coward]

In geekland you only get to be an asshole when you are right.

I'd like to be the first to welcome you to Slashdot, where anyone can be an asshole. Be sure to buy a t-shirt at the souvenir shop as you exit.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Anomalyst]

Depends on the hardware. Support for commodity hardware, serial, parallel, sound, is built-in, parallel dongles usually work. VMware has trial versions of most its offerings, you should be able to do a lab install and see how happy it is in a virtual environment. Heck, for a single conventional server you could probably use the free vmware server or at worst Workstation v6 if you need USB support (probably not, if this is creaky legacy stuff). ESX is pricey but great if you are going to commit a moderate number of host servers (4+) to virtualized control of multiple guests. If you are talking proprietary hardware its more difficult and more expensive. Depending how odd and how well documented a particular piece of hardware is, you might be able to get a VM aware device driver written (~$20K depending on complexity). Post some more details on what you have and you can probably get a more solid direction.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[ocbwilg]

The OP that you quoted made absolutely no reference to VMware - just to VMs in general.

True. But we were discussing whether it was technically possible to detect if you were running inside a virtual machine. There's no reason why we wouldn't discuss the most popular virtualization technology currently in use, aka, VMWare.

As the other guy said, you made a poor choice in picking VMware to demonstrate that virtualization is always detectable because it does not even try to hide - other virtualization systems DO make the effort to hide -- see the Blue Pill anti-DRM virtualization system for one example.

Really? That's not what he said at all. He said "VMWare doesn't make any attempt at hiding the fact that you're running in a virtual machine. Where did you get the idea that it did?" Quite a bit of difference there. But the truth is, VMWare isn't the only virtualization tool that is detectable from within the VM. Try reading the article that I referenced earlier from the ISC/SANS Institute: here.

And yes, you can point out some niche anti-DRM tool that lets you do limited virtualization, but good luck running the operating systems for your entire production environment on them...oh wait, you can't. Which pretty much makes them irrelevant in this conversation.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? That's not what he said at all. He said "VMWare doesn't make any attempt at hiding the fact that you're running in a virtual machine. Where did you get the idea that it did?" Quite a bit of difference there.

No, not really any significant difference at all. Certainly nothing to justify your butt-on-stick response.

As for blue-pill being niche - all of the ideas discussed for blue pill - latency hiding, memory hiding, etc can all be applied to any open-source hypervisor like Xen too. The ISC guys haven't really thought it out. And if you want to argue about usability for production, don't even bother that's not what the OP asked about and as long as the license says you can't do it, then pretty much by definition no production shop will even try anyway, rendering your personal smartass-justifying version of the question moot.

Re:restricting windows on VMWare?

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't get mad, dude. Just admit that you got bitchslapped in public and go home.

actually, MS does many creative things

[alizard]

The MS Research organization is first-rate.

And they do the same great job of getting things to market that Xerox PARC used to do.

MS really doesn't know what to do with good ideas.

Re:actually, MS does many creative things

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey! They invented Zune!!

Ok, what about DOS? They invented that!!

PS to parent: V r towkin of inventin mowket'

Re:actually, MS does many creative things

[Deagol]

That's what I've heard, as well. AT&T may have been teh evil in the 80's, but the stuff that came out of Bell Labs was top notch. Ditto IBM. And now Microsoft.

I know a sharp A.I. and machine learning post-grad who works for a major government lab (who also interned at MS in the early 90's). He told me one day that the A.I. that went into the Clippy engine was initially *too* good, and that the designers at MS had to tone it down to the irritating and near-useless state we all know and love.

It's a shame that the talent that MS had sucked up over the past 3 decades has their work tied up in MS's IP vault. Surely AT&T has much technology hidden from view, but they certainly have released a lot into the public for playing around with (C, UNIX, Plan9, and VNC are all great products many of us benefit from).

One can only speculate how many cool, but defunct, projects are laying around at MS. It's a shame they don't simply release some of this stuff.

Re:actually, MS does many creative things

[grcumb]

MS really doesn't know what to do with good ideas.

On the contrary. They know exactly what to do with good ideas: Keep them out of the hands of the competition. Whatever did you think MS Research was for?

I've been wondering...

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey Slashdot, why are PC users such ugly dweebs in comparison to Mac users? Is it because nobody has the time or patience to put up with Windows/Linux except for friendless, sexless nerds like you?

Not a lawyer, but...

[julesh]

... I do know a little legal theory, and it occurs to me that:

a) the passage that denies permission to run Vista Home et al in a VM is rather ambiguous, in that it could just be a clarification that the rule that allows you to run the higher-end versions in a virtual machine *at the same time* as a real machine doesn't apply. I'd really like to here official comment from MS's lawyers about how they intended this to be interpreted, and so far I haven't seen any.

b) Even if the ambiguity is only small, it still seems to be there to me, and the rule of contra proferentem should mean it is interpreted in the consumer's favour.

c) It might not make a difference anyway. As I understand it (and I'll admit my understanding of this area is rather fuzzy, because it is a very obscure corner of contract law that I've only heard about once, so I could be completely wrong), for a contract term to be enforceable, one or the other party must derive some legitimate benefit from it. I don't see what legitimate benefit MS derive from restricting the use of their products in this fashion.

Re:Not a lawyer, but...

[Pofy]

>I'd really like to here official comment from MS's lawyers about how
>they intended this to be interpreted, and so far I haven't seen any.

Wouldn't it be more interesting to see how, for example, a court would interpret it?

>Even if the ambiguity is only small, it still seems to be there to me,
>and the rule of contra proferentem should mean it is interpreted in the
>consumer's favour.

Yes, many countries have consumer contract term laws that specifically says that any vague term should always be interpreted in the consumer's favour.

Re:Not a lawyer, but...

[countach]

I can't see the ambiguity. Believe me, I've been trying to think of one. It says you can't run them in a VM. Pretty clear. The only hope I can see is ambiguity in what a VM actually is, although I'm not sure I could actually get away with that in court either, especially when you are running it in "VM"ware.

Re:Not a lawyer, but...

[drsmithy]

I can't see the ambiguity. Believe me, I've been trying to think of one

Vista Home:

You may not use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system.

Ie: it is written to indicate that if you have an existing Vista license that has been assigned to a piece of hardware, you can't reuse that Vista license to install it in a VM (running on the same hardware). But what if you have a Vista license that *isn't* assigned to a piece of hardware ?

Compared to Vista Ultimate and Business:

You may use the software installed on the licensed device within a virtual (or otherwise emulated) hardware system on the licensed device.

In other words, with Vista Ultimate and Business, you *can* reuse your Vista license to run more copies of Vista on the same hardware.

The ambiguity comes from the additional legalese and additional functionality apparently offered in the higher-end licenses. Why is the additional wording there if the objective is to simply deny the running on VMs completely ? There is no reason to specify "installed on the licensed device" when a simple "You may not use the software in a Virtualised Environment" would do. Why does Vista Ultimate and Business apparently give you free reign to reuse your license in VMs ?

My (and many others') interpretation is that Vista Business and Ultimate give you "free licenses" to install multiple copies of Vista running in VMs, as long as they're running in VMs on the same hardware your "real" copy of Vista is on. Vista Home says you can only run Vista either on bare metal, or a single VM instance on a single piece of physical hardware.

Re:Not a lawyer, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

An interesting test of all of this (and not one I can perform myself - no Vista here), would be to attempt to install a new, previously uninstalled copy of Vista in a fresh VMware session and see what happens. If it refuses to install, then you obviously have Microsoft's view of what they want the license to mean... (?)

Re:Not a lawyer, but...

[Anonymous Coward]

The emulated hardware wording is onerous given that all modern CPU's microcode a portion of their instruction set. Windows has traditionally been licensed per cpu and they explicitly allowed dual processors in the past. My reading then is that there's no restriction on running as many copies of Vista as you can on a single piece of hardware and Ballmer can go fiddle with himself in the little boys room if he thinks otherwise.

Microsoft has no technical obligation...

[rdean400]

to facilitate a competitor (that is, to make changes to its software so that a competitor's software will run). It does, however, have the moral and legal obligation as a monopoly to not change its license in anti-competitive means.

If VMWare can show that it's as much about anti-competition as it is anti-piracy, they have a valid argument.

Re:Microsoft has no technical obligation...

[bit01]

If VMWare can show that it's as much about anti-competition as it is anti-piracy, they have a valid argument.

VM's allow OS' to be treated as just another application. Why should OS-application vendors have any special legal privileges compared to every other software package vendor on the planet? Most software packages are already running in a virtual environment - the OS.

If somebody wrote a package that allowed, e.g. an M$Word instance to be snapshot and reanimated on another machine, could M$ be legally able to stop that from happening? I don't know.

Ethically though, I'd say it's highly anti-competitive; being able to legally kill business opportunities at will simply because they impact your business.

---

Monopolies = Industrial feudalism

Re:Microsoft has no technical obligation...

[vhogemann]

The funny thing is... VMWare actually adds value to Windows.

I think that this is a very bad move from Microsoft... as usual, they can't be satisfied with just a piece of the pie, they want everything. VMWare is a mature application, that adds real value to their product. If people can't use VMWare + Windows probably they'll switch to VMWare+Linux, or KVM, or Xen.

What if Microsoft's Virtual PC just don't catch on? They're risking to loose this entire virtualization market to Linux, both as host and guest OS.

Multiple Copies of VMs

[StonePiano]

1. Create a VM with one Windows licence (perhaps do .NET development) 2. Make copy of VM for my buddy to also work with same Windows Licence ... 4. Profit!

Ballmer likes the Bottom!!

[jkrise]

Steven A. Ballmer, Microsofts chief executive, said, "Everybody in the operating system business wants to be the guy on the bottom...." (From the referenced article)

Everybody would love if Microsoft reached the absolute rock-bottom of the Operating System business... and with people like Ballmer in charge, that goal shouldn't be far off!

PS: Sarcasm and humour impaired are advised to read this post with caution.

Bye bye, VMware....

[Caspian]

It was a good run. Seriously-- once MS decides to push you out of the market, you're as good as dead.

Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS
Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
Example 3: Internet Explorer vs. Netscape
Example 4: Doubledisk/doublespace vs. Stacker
Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2

etc. etc. etc. Sometimes, it takes a while-- like how they're still struggling to make MSN relevant-- but, in the end, they always get what they want. They simply have too much money-- and, therefore, too much clout-- not to.

I'm not saying I agree with this. Quite the opposite, in fact. However, VMware is doomed. (Film at eleven.) You read it here first. Call me a pessimist, but I've seen the writing on the wall. I should have seen it coming when Microsoft released Virtual PC as freeware.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[countach]

If you're running multiple OSes (linux, solaris, windows etc) you may WANT an independant player for your VM, in order to give you flexibility. Not to say MS can't make some progress pushing their way in, but it's not so easy for MS any more. The days of double space etc, are long gone.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

> Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS
Irrelevant, Symbian rules.

> Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
PS3 is having troubles more due to Sony mistakes than anything else, besides Nintendo's Wii is mopping up at the moment.

> Example 4: Doubledisk/doublespace vs. Stacker
Does anyone use these kinds of things anymore? Compressing individual files is all well and good, but the entire hard drive? This would've died without MS killing it.

> Example 3: Internet Explorer vs. Netscape
> Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2
These are the ones that matter. MS won the desktop war by convincing manufacturers to bundle Windows with every PC. IE won the browser wars by being bundled with Windows, and therefore most PCs. Bundling the virtualization with Windows will be a major advantage for MS, but it's still no guarantee. They don't even own the server market like they do with desktops.

Windows Media vs. iTunes
MSN Search (or whatever they're calling it these days) vs. Google

You can fight MS and survive, sometimes even win.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[__aailrp9629]

Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3

Right... big bad Microsoft picking on poor little Sony.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[-noefordeg-]

I don't catch your point...

In two weeks we (I and someone else from my company) are going to VMWare presentation.
We are already using VMWare, but currently only for testing. Our plan is to move several systems over to a few new servers (from Dell) running VMWare with Linux guest OS's.
Why is VMWare doomed?
I can't see the connection between anything MS does and what VMWare get from us...

Right now, we've got one computer left here running Windows. The rest are all OSX or Ubuntu.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[jellomizer]

Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS
Really? PalmOS is still widely used. Look at the smart Phones being sold There is usually at least 2 with PalmOS maybe 3 with Windows CE, and the rest are blackberries.

Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
Don't Blame Microsoft on this on Sony was just SUPID! Too little to Late, way to expensive. Sony played a Vista with its Playstation 3.

Example 3: Internet Explorer vs. Netscape
Well netscape went underground and opened its source for the Mozilla foundation. Then Firefox came along based on Netscape Code.

Example 4: Doubledisk/doublespace vs. Stacker
Didn't Microsoft steal that code? And just use a hex editor to change the name or something. Also for software like this you really can't blame MS as an attempt to kill the competition it is more of a way to give functionality to their OS. Programs like Stacker, Desqview, Quemm... Are really hacks to the current OS, that do what the OS Should do anyways.

Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2
I guess some of the blame can go to Microsoft and some evil, because they advertised Windows 95 to be far more then what it was, Windows Vista is one step closer to offering what Microsoft promised us in Windows 95. So when people had to choose they had to pick of OS/2 Warp or Windows 95 With Microsoft making seem like the ultimate OS vs. OS/2 more legit advertisements got people wanting Windows 95 mostly because of fears of OS/2 Running DOS/Windows Apps Slower then windows 3.1. Which in reality I doubt anyone except for people you need to benchmark that stuff will notice the difference. Also OS/2 did a lousy marketing job on OS/2 Warp. I saw the add when it was released and I knew what the product was before the add. But to anyone who didn't know what OS/2 Warp was wouldn't get it. "It was a bunch of people going wow this is cool" but that is about it.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

Playstation 3 is far from dead and none of the debacles with it had nothing to with Microsoft.
It had more to do with Sony.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

The current marketing hype is "save money on hardware and electricity by using Virtual machines".

1. hardware underutilized or will be underutilized in the next 24 months? Prob not

2. Absolutely. must. run that underutilized software on its very own dedicated operating sytem? Prob not

3. Don't want the performance gain of dedicated hardware/storage etc...think your db server, imap server etc etc? Maybe not

4. Want to be able to absolutely seamlessly and without any interruption move a running VM from one physical machine to another. A dream

Just not worth it for me - If #4 worked 100% perfect i'd be interested.

Now VMs are cool and all but I think most shops aren't big enough to have a real need for it.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[kripkenstein]

It was a good run. Seriously-- once MS decides to push you out of the market, you're as good as dead.

[5 excellent examples]

True, but the world has changed since most of those examples. For example, Microsoft is losing (quite dramatically) to Apple in the mp3player market. Also, Microsoft is losing market share to Firefox (but not fatally so, not yet at least).

What does this have to do with VMWare? Well, they should learn that competing on Microsoft's turf is doomed to fail; that is what happened in your 5 examples. That turf is 'proprietary commodity software'. Facing Microsoft there is virtual suicide. But, change the scenery, and the rules are different: VMWare can open-source their product, making it free (similary to Xen and VirtualBox); that is what allows Firefox to survive. Or, VMWare can provide something that Microsoft simply cannot, which is what (arguably) Apple are doing with the iPod (usability, style). In the virtualization world, 'something that Microsoft cannot supply' might be good performance with Linux; many environments are mixed Linux and Windows, yet Microsoft might not want to let their own virtualization offering work well with Linux. Recent deals with Xen and Novell indicate *possibly* otherwise, however, which is bad news for VMWare.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[drsmithy]

Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS
Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
Example 3: Internet Explorer vs. Netscape
Example 4: Doubledisk/doublespace vs. Stacker
Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2

Example 6: Microsoft Money vs Quicken.
Er, wait...

Certainly your last 3 examples (and probably the first two, but since I don't travel in the console or PDA markets, I couldn't say) are just as easily explained by standard market forces.

The enormous suckitude of Navigator 4 and clear superiority of IE4 killed Netscape.
Plummeting hard disk prices and dodgy reliability (and I say that as an ex-Stac customer - hell, I even have an old compression coprocessor 16-bit ISA card around here somewhere) killed Stacker (and similar technologies).
Lack of native software, high hardware requirements, lack of clear and obvious advantages (especially once Windows 95 was out), weird software compatibility problems with games (especially in the 1992 - 1995 timeframe when DOS extenders were common) and, if anything, an "anti-marketing" strategy from IBM killed OS/2 (and I say _that_ as an ex-OS/2 user).

If VMWare have a clear advantage over Microsoft - and they certainly do at the moment - they won't have any trouble staying in business. Moreover, if Microsoft never develop any clear advantage over them, their existing customers will stay with them (inertia is a massive force in the enterprise and a non-trivial one even in the home user market) and new customers will prefer them because of their "experience" and "high profile". VMWare only really have something to worry about if they fuck it up, like Netscape did.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[rbarreira]

I guess some of the blame can go to Microsoft and some evil, because they advertised Windows 95 to be far more then what it was, Windows Vista is one step closer to offering what Microsoft promised us in Windows 95.

Do you have any links about what Microsoft promised for Windows 95? I'd be really interested to read that :)

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[rbarreira]

I also don't understand how MS can be blamed for anything to do with the Playstation 3, considering it has only recently launched (not in europe yet though!).

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[jbarr]

I don't catch your point...

In two weeks we (I and someone else from my company) are going to VMWare presentation.
We are already using VMWare, but currently only for testing. Our plan is to move several systems over to a few new servers (from Dell) running VMWare with Linux guest OS's.
Why is VMWare doomed?
I can't see the connection between anything MS does and what VMWare get from us...

Right now, we've got one computer left here running Windows. The rest are all OSX or Ubuntu.

In your case, it's a non-issue.

His point is two-fold when taken in the context of the article.

1. Microsoft Is As Microsoft Does
Like so many other Microsoft products, Microsoft's virtualization products may overtake VMWare simply because of its better "compatibility" and "compliance" to Microsoft licensing. And not because the product is innovative or technically "better" product, but because it can leverage Microsoft itself. If Microsoft words the license to favor its products over competitors, they may run into legal issues.

2. Licensing
If Microsoft changes its licensing favoring Microsoft products over competitors, it could affect using Windows under VMWare. Not because of specific technical reasons, but because of pure license issues. In your case, where everything is non-Windows, it'a a non-issue.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[blackest_k]

whats the difference between VMWare and Virtual PC ?
one is just a windows application.
That is why MS isn't going to win this one.
Did you know you can get a complete ready to use Mono development environment as a VM, works well hosted on ubuntu, or XP or...
Its actually configured on OpenSuse 10.2 but the underlying OS isn't too important what does matter is how quick you can go from downloading to using (missing out the configuration, resolve issue stage is a lot of time saved)

I really would like to see more like this for other development environments.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Sleepy]

... something about "starving them [vmware] of their oxygen supply" probably indicates the fate of VMWAre.

MS will be using more than 1 method to dissuade people from using vmware:

1) Make Virtual PC free
2) Prohibit some MS OS's from running under vmware
3) Make "virtual ready" client licenses of Windows OS more expensive (which affects any VM... but they have to tread carefully here and not specify vmware as the reason. Big deal if VPC is affected see #4
4) Special price bundles and servers for Virtual PC hosting MS OS's, server packs, etc.
5) The killer is when MS goes after VM's site bread and butter: migration and management tools. What's VMWare going to do to retaliate against Microsoft's bread and butter?? (Release a compatible OS, release an office suite?? come on...)

Competing with Microsoft is like playing roshambo with Cartman.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

MSN messenger is relevant, at least in here, Estonia. Once MSN messenger client started to be bundled with Windows, it went to masses. I myself was once ICQ user, but nowadays MSN messenger is the way, since almost everyone is using it.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Zonk (troll)]

Our plan is to move several systems over to a few new servers (from Dell) running VMWare with Linux guest OS's. If your goal is to run Linux as the guest OS, why bother with VMWare? Spend the 10 minutes to learn how to use Xen. It's very easy once you get the hang of it. It runs very fast, too. I used VMWare Server for a two months before switching. The only way I'd go back is if I had to virtualize a Windows server.

Here's a tutorial that got me started with Xen, though I now use a mix of CentOS and Debian as guests with FC6 as the host.

http://www.howtoforge.com/xen_3.0_ubuntu_dapper_dr ake

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Acer500]

The current marketing hype is "save money on hardware and electricity by using Virtual machines".

1. hardware underutilized or will be underutilized in the next 24 months? Prob not

2. Absolutely. must. run that underutilized software on its very own dedicated operating sytem? Prob not

3. Don't want the performance gain of dedicated hardware/storage etc...think your db server, imap server etc etc? Maybe not

4. Want to be able to absolutely seamlessly and without any interruption move a running VM from one physical machine to another. A dream

Just not worth it for me - If #4 worked 100% perfect i'd be interested.

Now VMs are cool and all but I think most shops aren't big enough to have a real need for it.

Point #2 is a huge selling point, at least for us, and probably for everyone who runs custom-made software.

A surprising amount of "custom built" programs (plus several off-the-shelf ones) have been tested on one platform only, requires a particular configuration, and assume they are the only program on the server, so it's ok to hog bandwidth, use port 80 if they're a web application, etc.

And there are lots of programs that just don't work well together.

Plus, it's an additional layer of stability, if one VM goes down in flames, it doesn't hurt the other applications in their independant VMs.

Point 2 usually leads to Point 1 for several shops in my experience (every program gets its own - underutilized - server).

Point 3 is a problem, but you're hopefully not putting your DB server in a VM, I'm thinking stuff like programs for accounting, human resources, intranets, CRM, content management, QA, etc...

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Miamicanes]

> Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS

Not really. Palm unfortunately did a perfectly good job of snagging defeat from the jaws of victory on their own. As much as I'd love to see Palm rise from the ashes with its Zen mostly intact (but finally able to walk & chew gum at the same time, particularly with respect to network data transfer), I've pretty much written it off as a pipe dream.

Even if Access pulls off a small miracle with ALP, Sprint and Verizon's petty insistence on exclusivity will ensure that at least half of the developers & enthusiasts who'd otherwise buy one, sight unseen, the day they hit the market will be chained & shackled to the wrong carrier, and by the time it appears for their carrier its warts and shortcomings will be well known, which will put off a lot of them (and keep a big chunk of casual developers out of the loop in the meantime).

IMHO, the ONLY way Access can save PalmOS->ALP is if they can dig a tunnel under the wall around Sprint & Verizon's hardware gardens by porting ALP1.0's SDK to a phone platform common to both (PPC6700 already has nearly total penetration among former Palm enthusiasts), so people who own one can reflash it to ALP without having to play silly games with Sprint & Verizon (handling the proprietary phone network firmware part the way Linux handles Win32 WLAN drivers via NDISwrapper, so Sprint & Verizon's own networks would never know the difference between a 6700 running WM5 and a 6700 reflashed to ALP). It would make ALP basically zero money initially, but would achieve something WAY more important at this stage of the game -- it would re-establish the Palm/ALP developer ecosystem, so that when the first-gen REAL ALP phones arrive, there will still be a market for them.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

[quote]Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
Don't Blame Microsoft on this on Sony was just SUPID! Too little to Late, way to expensive. Sony played a Vista with its Playstation 3.[/quote]

Acutally, the PS3 is currently selling better (more units sold) than the 360 was at the same point in its life-cycle. Of course, the Wii is mopping the floor with both of them by that metric.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[Anonymous Coward]

We run 1000 virtual servers on 74 physical ones. Just FYI. These companies exist, and if you're a small company and you ever want to go to a shared hosting environment, or a datacenter provider, you might get vmware without asking for it. They'll give you a portion of the virtualization savings back, and you'll be happy for it. and #4 works about as close to perfect as I've ever seen. We do it everyday.

Re:Bye bye, VMware....

[jellomizer]

Sorry no links but it was things like "Crash Proof" (No because it would still crash and lockup, just a little less then windows 3.1), Multi-User (being able to login as a different name is nut multi-user, multi user is the ability for multiple users to login at the same time) support, Security (Great security features which you can go around by hitting cancel at login). Stuff that Linux was much better at the time. Adds like "Get the Most with your PC with Windows 95" as I laughed having my Slackware Distribution as my primary OS being able to really utilize my PC.

VMware helps them

[Anonymous Coward]

And vmware helps them by only make their management tools avaible for Windows nowdays.

But when Apple does this...

[Anonymous Coward]

When Apple discourages virtual machines running OSX, this is reluctantly accepted because, well... gee, they're Apple and we won't do this unless they say we can.

When Microsoft discourages virtual machines running Windows: Booo! Hisss! They're EEEEvil!

Double-standard much?

At this point someone usually makes comments about Microsoft making money on the software, Apple making money on the hardware. But it's their business plan - not yours - so I'm sure it does make sense for Microsoft to not permit it. For one, copy protection doesn't work since you can duplicate the entire virtual machine.

Re:But when Apple does this...

[JonJ]

I can not seem to find Apples offering that competes with VMware, can you?

Re:But when Apple does this...

[itsdapead]

When Apple discourages virtual machines running OSX, this is reluctantly accepted [slashdot.org] because, well... gee, they're Apple and we won't do this unless they say we can.

Yes there is a double standard - one standard for a small/medium player in a competetive market, and another standard for a company with a near-total monopoly.

Yes, Apple have a restrictive license that only allows you to run OSX on genuine, non-virtual Apple iron.

BUT If you don't like that then you are perfectly free to vote with your feet and buy one of the 95%+ of other computer systems available that don't run come with OSX.

Except... nearly all of those other 95% of systems are running MS software. Even if you complete the uphill struggle to buy one without MS Windows included and run Linux/*BSD/BeOS then sooner or later the 95% of the world who didn't bother will oblige you to use Windows for some task or other.

Are you saying that Apple, with a few % of the market, should be subject to anti-monopoly rules because their only competetor has a near-monopoly??

In short, if Apple ever gain 50%+ of the desktop computing market they'll have to face the same anti-trust responsibilities as Microsoft. The only area Apple are within a sniff of that is with iTMS, and then only if you don't count CD sales as digital music distribution. Until then, every time they decide on a restrictive license, impose a lock in, or piss off a software house by incorporating an application they have to balance the benefits to them against a genuine risk of losing customers to the competition.

In the meantime, MS have - through their Vista licenses and the ridiculous premium charged for "stand alone" copies of Windows - made it extremely expensive to legally run Windows as anything other than your primary operating system.

Sometime, Apple will have to support virtualization on OSX Server in order to compete with Linux and Windows. Currently, I don't think there is a significant demand (personally, I don't even see why you'd want to use OSX as a server, when its USP is its user interface).

Re:But when Apple does this...

[Jumpy]

I know this thread is about virtualization, not emulation, but...

Does anyone else remember running MacOS (classic) under shapeshifter
or Amax on AmigaOS? I seem to recall Apple being pretty pissed about that also.
Tried to dry up ROMS or something IIRC. (Its been a long time so I don't recall all the details)

Well, now is the time...

[Aaron Isotton]

...to support VMWare and buy a license for a great piece of software which you're probably using anyway. I am a Debian user and free software enthusiast, but I bought my license for VMWare workstation years ago and never looked back. VMWare is one of the very few commercial programs which I consider worth spending money on. I never had any real problems with it (at least since version 5, which is what I bought), it's fast and a pleasure to use. Maybe Xen or KVM will replace it in the long run, but I'm sure I'll keep on using VMWare for at least another two years.

I know this sounds like an ad, but even their Linux support is great. I had some issues with VMWare 4 (I was using the trial) and asked on the newsgroup; the answers were quick and helpful.

VMWare is exactly the way software should be. If you use it and like it you should really consider buying it.

I guess that VMWare should not have played in MS..

[WindBourne]

backyard. Eveyr company wants to play in MS's backyard, build it up to be profitable, and then are surprised that the hog wants their profits through any means possible. What amazes me is that companies have not learned that if they put their best work on MS and slight or even not build on other platforms, they kill their long term viability. Several others that are slowly disappearing are Adobe and Intuit.

does this apply to Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

Will a judge tell Apple it has no business telling me on what hardware I run Tiger?

Re:does this apply to Apple?

[Alcoholic Synonymous]

Of course it would. The question would come down to proving you own it and thus have the right to use it. Then, that you only have that one licensed copy in use. Apple wouldn't like it, but the precedent would be set: you buy it, it's yours. They just wouldn't be obligated to support the way you use it.

Re:does this apply to Apple?

['nother poster]

That's the thing though, you license the copy of the software you don't own the copy. It's more like a lease than ownership of real property, but not really. It's its own beast.

Re:does this apply to Apple?

[Anonymous Coward]

You own the copy. The loophole that Microsoft (and too many other software companies using EULA's) is trying to enforce is to use the copy (that you own, just like you own the copy of Britanny Spears' music on the CD if you bought it) you must allow your computer to extract (i.e., copy from the copy) content off the CD and into your computer's memory, often putting things in more permanent storage, say on the hard drive. Now I call that fair use. But licenses say that you have now made a copy in violation of copyright law unless you agree to the license terms. Dumb judges say "fair use", "first sale", what are those? Those hamper business and I - being appointed by Bush, Clinton, Bush, or Reagan will do nothing to hamper business. Business is more important than common sense or the people. And so you become indentured to the license terms by using the copy of software you bought on your computer. You do own the copy (the one you bought) however. You just can't do much with it. At least not without agreeing to additional terms with a person that is not there.

Re:does this apply to Apple?

['nother poster]

No, you own a pice of plastic with a variably reflective substrate, not the copyrighted material encoded in the substrate. Once again the difference between real property and intilectual property. That "copy" to hard drive, or what not, is covered in the license. It tells you where and when you can and cannot copy the licensed materials.

Don't like the laws concerning copyright? Then legislate to have it changed. Run for office with copyright reform as part of your platform. Get a petition circulating. Do something besides whine that judges don't agree with you as to the application of concepts of "fair use" and "first sale".

Competitors?

[DaveG, the Quantum P]

VMWare is hardly a competitor, and if they're referring to using competing OS's on VMware, well they're shooting themselves in the the foot because someone might just as well likely run a MS OS in a virtual machine for development proposes.

Re:Competitors?

[_Shad0w_]

Microsoft makes Virtual PC, which is a competitor to VMWare's products. Not much of a competitor admitidly.

Re:Competitors?

[Andrewm1986]

Makes? Bought and did a replace on the source more like

Re:Competitors?

[Acer500]

Microsoft makes Virtual PC, which is a competitor to VMWare's products. Not much of a competitor admitidly.

Microsoft is about to release Virtual PC 2007 which is vastly improved according to people I know who have tested it (one cool feature was running a VM on a Flash drive which made it blazingly fast, but I'm not sure if that was thanks to VPC or Vista). VMWare 5 was miles ahead of Virtual PC 2004 admitedly

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamil y/virtualpc/default.mspx

No, this is *very* clever.

[babbling]

This is evil-genius-style clever.

If Microsoft used the license agreement against Virtual Machines at the same time as releasing their own, they'd get into legal trouble. Legal trouble is a pain in the neck, so what they're doing is saying that "Virtual Machines are a security flaw" and banning them from the operating system. Then, later on, as a complete coincidence Microsoft is going to create "a Virtual Machine that is safe". Luckily for them, the coincidence that they have crafted doesn't involve any competitors!

Re:No, this is *very* clever.

[Watson Ladd]

And when has Microsoft ever made something safe? Their solution to buffer overruns is not ASLR(address space layout randomization) but making all programs run in a VM. This doesn't work as a lot of apps still will use unmanaged code and a lot of flaws exist in the security model of the VM. In over 30 years of work on the security model of Unix people still discover flaws, especially in X11. Microsoft only had a security model 7 years old, still in flux, and we are supposed to trust it? They have a horrible track record on security. For them to say that VM's are a security risk is hypocritical considering that .Net is a VM. And for them to say that they make something more secure then the completion would be laughable.

Re:No, this is *very* clever.

[Anonymous Coward]

Their solution isn't ASLR? Then why is it in Vista (assuming the binary is linked for it)? Security involves many layers and they are being proactive.

Re:No VMs? Fine.

[bmo]

"microsoft, with its billions, is blind in making strategic business decisions, but you, some slashdot postager, is the one who truly understands what is best for microsoft's business. right"

You do realize that Microsoft used to brag about adding a feature because a _single_ customer asked for it, correct?

What, exactly, happened between then and now that made the customer wrong?

--
BMO

Once again we have to ask...

[TheNetAvenger]

Once again I as a consumer have to ask. What is MS doing that no one else is doing?

Windows is a 'licensed use' 'closed source' OS. That up front should tell anyone what they need to know about it.

So I have to ask, why is there such outcry that you can't install certain Vista versions in a VM for production or daily use? The last time I checked you can't install OSX in a VM NO MATTER WHAT according to the Apple license.

So every user complaining about this policy from MS, should also write a letter to Apple demanding they let OSX run in VMs legally as well.

At least MS fully licenses the non Home versions to work in VMs, and still allows developers to test home versions in VMs.

So if this really angers you, then you have choices. First you should write Apple and all other Closed source OS companies that don't allow their OSes to run in VMs.

Your next choice is simple, don't like it, don't freaking use it, there are plenty alternatives.

If companies have a software product THEY NEED that only runs on Windows it would be FAR CHEAPER and easier to install a cheap Windows server and let users run that application via terminal services. Also a lot easier to deploy and support than mass amounts of VMs scattered throughout the offices.

As for developers, most developers can get free or trial copies of any windows version for testing, and you can get by the 'license' if you need to test your product on Home Basic even in a VM.

MS is also working with Xen and doing virtualization as a lot of OSS and technical people would want, yet because this puts VMWare at a disadvantage, they get to cry wolf and try to create some PR out of how they get hurt.

If VMWare wants to cry about this, then fine let them cry. But if they want to succeed then they need to create a product that is simply BETTER than MS's VM or anything out there. That is the only way they will succeed, especially considering they have the entire *nix VM Host market as MS doesn't even try to make a non Windows Host version of their VM software.

So get over it VMWare and just do what you do best.

If this was REALLY about OS licensing to run under VMs, then they would also be talking about OSX and tons of other OSes that do not allow usage in VMs; instead they are focusing only on two versions of MS Vista.

This should have been the first clue to everyone that VMWares motives are not as pure or consumer minded as they want people to believe.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[countach]

>So every user complaining about this policy from MS, should also
>write a letter to Apple demanding they let OSX run in VMs legally as well.

Why? I have a need to run Windows in a VM, but I don't have a need at the moment to run OSX in a VM. As soon as I do, I'll write that letter to Apple, but right now all I care about is MS leveraging their illegal monopoly against those trying to switch to Mac.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[scsa]

If companies have a software product THEY NEED that only runs on Windows it would be FAR CHEAPER and easier to install a cheap Windows server and let users run that application via terminal services. Also a lot easier to deploy and support than mass amounts of VMs scattered throughout the offices. Terminal services? Cheaper?! Compared to what, an ESX server made out of diamonds?

Microsoft's TS licensing for a decent number of users is extortionate. A VMware player package on some central network share would be free and far more supportable, being totally copyable, deletable & restorable as flat files.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[TheNetAvenger]

Microsoft's TS licensing for a decent number of users is extortionate. A VMware player package on some central network share would be free and far more supportable, being totally copyable, deletable & restorable as flat files.

There is a lot you don't consider when stating something like this.

Let's just take one concept and let you think about it. What is better shoving VM Images over your corporate network or RDP data streams? Now consider this in an office environment where people work from other locations or outside the office.

So just to run this 'one' application, you want to shove a feg gigs across the network, and this is easier and cheaper how?

In an office with 5 people this could be debateable, but in an office with 20-1000 users, using VMs to support one or a few applications would be insane.

Thinking like yours is actually keeping companies from non-windows deployments on the desktop, as they have some crappy old windows based application people need, and they don't consider a light easy way to get that application to the desktop without having Windows running locally.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[scsa]

Wit Gigabit LANs, big PC HDs, differential rsync etc, caching a gig or so on a user PC is not a problem these days.

But that's not the point - you said deploying TS would be cheaper than a VMware package for a single windows app. That's ridiculous! I roll out TS and Citrix professionally for corporate clients as part of my job and they're great technologies in the right situation, but they do not come cheap.

Especially compared to a free VM package any level 1 helpdesker could slap together in a half day.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[Andrewm1986]

There are no restrictions in the OS X license saying you CANT run it in a VM. Apple just says you can only run it on apple branded hardware.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[Anonymous Coward]

nice cuntach...

1. If something is actually 'wrong' as you claim limiting an OSs use in a VM, it it is always wrong, not just when it affects you.

2. They do not have an 'illegal monopoly'. Monopolies are perfectly legal. They were found guilty of specific acts that are normal business practices for most businesses, but are illegal once you are declared a monopoly. Of course when they did them, they had not yet been declared a monopoly so their actions were actually retroactively declared illegal after they did them. Yes, that is how US anti-trust law works.

3. Just like Apple, they know they have to keep a tight rein on how people use VMs or they will lose the ability to control licenses to a 'single install'. This true of ALL commercial software, not just OS's.

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[TheNetAvenger]

There are no restrictions in the OS X license saying you CANT run it in a VM. Apple just says you can only run it on apple branded hardware

Wow, I'm glad you cleared this up. Would you send us all a URL for where we can get an Apple approved VM?

Apple won't let people install their OS on anything without an Apple logo and you see this as being better than MS licensing restrictions for Home versions of Vista in a VM?

Do people frequently use the term insane when describing you?

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[TheNetAvenger]

That's ridiculous! I roll out TS and Citrix professionally for corporate clients as part of my job and they're great technologies in the right situation, but they do not come cheap.


Well since you have rolled out TS or Citrix (they aren't the same you know), you must be the expert here.

I shall in the future refer all our company clients to you. When GM or EDS calls, be sure to tell them how you once deployed a citrix and TS project professionally, that will ensure you get the contract. Geesh...

Why does it seem that everyone here is either a newb or an Apple fanboi anymore?

Re:Once again we have to ask...

[Andrewm1986]

The fact is that Apple doesnt explicity say that you CANNOT run it on a VM. It says you cannot run it on non-apple branded hardware. Obviously no one has tested this.

And who does this? No one in the data center.

[gelfling]

Aside from developers and a tiny group of specialists who need access to a particular app? In the datacenter world this is anathema. No one running a gaggle of boxes would ever seriously consider this and get paid for it. Cheaper and easier by far to throw up one more server and spend the 0.04 FTE (1/25th of a person) it takes to run it.

And if you seriously considering multi image same system partitioning of Windows then you my friend need to re examine what it is you're doing. LPARs are not for Windows code. Go out and by an iSeries midrange or an AIX machine.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[ibbieta]

Aside from developers and a tiny group of specialists who need access to a particular app? In the datacenter world this is anathema. No one running a gaggle of boxes would ever seriously consider this and get paid for it. Cheaper and easier by far to throw up one more server and spend the 0.04 FTE (1/25th of a person) it takes to run it. I assume you mean that you think it irresponsible to be running Windows in a virtuallized environment? If so, I hate to tell you this but I'm seeing more and more companies, some with very large and capable tech staff, doing just that. At first it was for testing and development, true, but it just became easier to copy the image files onto the production VM serves. I even know of one credit union that has ALL production Windows servers as VMs.

The ease of backups-restores is one big reason for the love being directed at VM servers. Just shut the machine down, copy some files, and boom! a point-in-time backup. Moving an application from testing to production, same things as a backup with just loading the files into a new VMWare (banks require physical separation of hardware between development/testing/production so these files are actually copied to a new VMserver).

To be honest, I'm an old systems admin, too, and thought VMs were just for testing and development and was a bit disturbed to see big, careful companies using them for production. Worse, I'm a consultant installing some heavy Windows applications that can overwhelm even beefy machines and virtuallizing my servers just slows them down. I am not privy to the reasons for why the move to VMs but I think management was getting tired of all the problem tickets that amounted to "hardware problem with ServerX, moving to new hardware -- 20 hours". (Yeah, way too long to move a server, but at large institutions everything takes longer than it should; in my network, creating a new VM image takes about 15 minutes, with the procedures and paperwork at the credit union this will take 2 hours and require 5 people be involved.)

--ibbieta

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where've you been?
This is common practice. Were you expecting to be modded funny? Some crap apps only run on windows and data center space is expensive.

If they don't take that many resources then you are wasting 1/25th of a person and a 1U in your datacenter.

Get with it kido.

Are you going to port this crap app to AIX? Go back to school...

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you serious? Cheaper to throw up a server? I think not, maybe in a small shop it's cheaper, but not in a data center. We run over 1/2 (in the 100's of servers) of our Intel side of the data center in VMWare, production and test without any issues at all. And it is by FAR cheaper. A typical server in the physical world costs $4500+ in hardware/OS licensing plus acquisition time, and install setup time. With VMWare we're down to about $2000, and under an hour to provision and turn over a server. This year alone we're looking at over $500,000 in cost savings and avoidance just by using VMWare and that's only the hardware/OS cost, not the admin time required to setup and maintain each server.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[gelfling]

You can't do virtualized port scanning, health checking. You can't easily manage a virtualized VPN tunnel and you're stuck with more or less keeping all the same customers on the same iron anyway. Plus patch management really isn't much easier and capacity planning is much much harder to do.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[gelfling]

No but if I need to actually virtualize something I'll run it on a system that actually runs virtualization well with low overhead that allows me to dial in the specific capacity I need. Just because I can partition something arbitrarily doesn't mean it's running in the right sized sandbox. And if your apps are really trivial enough to do that then why are they being hosted at all.

Port them to AIX? No of course not. That would mean they're big enough and important enough to do that, which clearly they're not.

BTW wait 18 months when you run out of overhead unevenly and you're forced to move specific applications to their own hardware and/or you're forced to create new virtualized servers on the new hardware. You will find that either the hardware you need to deploy is either insanely large or, those applications will wind up on their own servers anyhow.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[gelfling]

Assuming zero or near zero growth. Over time when capacity hits the ceiling then you'll be forced to deploy new hardware and because you've already hit some arbitrary ceiling the new hardware will be very large and very powerful. Hopefully you won't have to deploy the app on its own hardware or figure out how to move images around from server to server. VM environments can be quite a bit more complex from a capacity planning and load balancing perspective unless each of the apps is really small and trivial. Moreover it's very hard to isolate specific instances for things like VPN tunnels, health checking, port scanning and NIC utilization. It more or less commits you to running different little apps for the same customer on the same box. Now that can work but from the point of view of running a hosting center for 1500 different customers I'm sure there's a lot of empirical evidence to suggest what the real quantitative material benefits are.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[Anonymous Coward]

I assume you mean that you think it irresponsible to be running Windows in a virtuallized environment?

I don't think he said that at all. I think he said it's irresponsible to use a windows host. He did mention that higher end hardware based virtualization is something worth buying.

I assume you mean that you think it irresponsible to be running Windows in a virtuallized environment?

I'd go so far as to say it's irresponsible to be running Windows when *not* in a virtualized environment. Without VMWare shapshots and rollbacks there's no chance our production windows machines would be stable enough for production use.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[illumin8]

And if you seriously considering multi image same system partitioning of Windows then you my friend need to re examine what it is you're doing. LPARs are not for Windows code. Go out and by an iSeries midrange or an AIX machine.

You need to keep up on industry trends. Thousands of high-end data centers and almost every fortune 100 company is using VMware, and they're doing more with it than just development and QA. You know how most production servers only run at about 5-10% utilization? Why not consolidate your server farm and reduce the amount of servers you have by a factor of 10? The cost savings are significant, and are more than just FTE. We are talking about power savings, data center floor space, network infrastructure, and reducing the amount of hardware that can fail. And it's not just Windows apps, it's Linux, Solaris, BSD, etc.

Keep an eye on Redhat Enterprise 5 and XenSource because when that arrives it will have built in virtualization and at that point large Linux shops will start to virtualize wholesale. Now please crawl back under your rock, AIX troll...

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[gelfling]

No what I meant was that it is shortsighted to implement Virtualization on a host system that doesn't truly have that function nor does it typically have the free overhead to do it in the first place. One of the key reason VM or z/OS or AIX play so well in this field is that they scale up to dozens of processors for a single 'host' system image. In fact that's how we run Linux on a mainframe, not as an LPAR but as a guest under VM. Similarly we can spool up t0 4 simultaneous ADSM (Tivoli Storage Manager) hosts in a single system image implemented across multiple processor complexes. If we tried to to do that with a Windows host we'd wind up with a bigger physical server than we could have implemented putting each one in its own hardware. This was the problem we had with Citrix Metaframe. In order to get 30 client 'hosts' we had to build the biggest goddamn Windows server available at the time. It just turned out to be flat out cheaper to do it with a heavy client.

If someone can show me how to run Windows on 24-48 processors for a single system image that I can then carve up into 100 VMs then I'll be impressed.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[ksm]

I don't think you get what ESX and VI3 are all about.

Everyone is doing this. I'm doing it right now for several clients, from high schools to insurance companies.

Organizations that are choose (or are forced) to run Windows are jumping all over themselves to implement VI3, because it gives them control! VI3 is not about scaling performance to ridiculously high levels, it's about removing the direct link between a server and the hardware that it is running on.

Migrations, DR, server consolidation, saving space and power in the datacentre, being able to deploy new servers in minutes. These are all things that Administrators of Windows systems have been forced to struggle with, and VI3 is providing a very good solution to these problems.

Re:And who does this? No one in the data center.

[ksm]

Actually here you demonstrate that you don't know much about VI3 at all. "or figure out how to move images around from server to server" Hmmm, right click on the VM in Virtual Center, select Migrate, choose the destination ESX host, then OK. The VM then moves without shutting down. To Windows admins this is like miracle.

There's only one way to settle this...

[StringBlade]

Googlefight!

• WinCE vs. PalmOS => Winner: PalmOS
• XBox 360 vs. Playstation 3 => Winner: XBox 360
• Internet Explorer vs. Netscape => Winner: Internet Explorer
• Doubledisk/Doublespace vs. Stacker => Winner: Stacker
• Windows vs. OS/2 => Winner: Windows

See? Microsoft doesn't always win!

You forgot about...

[kalem13]

Their are places they didn't win!

Example 1: Xbox 360 VS Wii
Example 2: Zune VS Ipod
Example 3: IIS VS Apache
Example 4: Windows Live Search VS Google

As for the console market, I think Sony had it coming, with their overpriced PS3. This is somewhere where Microsoft did put a good product on the market, with an innovating offer (Xbox live). And Microsoft didn't try to copy Nintendo's Wiimote, Sony did!

Re:You forgot about...

[Anonymous Coward]

MSX

IBM screwed up OS/2 all by themselves.

[cdn-programmer]

Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2
These are the ones that matter. MS won the desktop war by convincing manufacturers to bundle Windows with every PC. IE won the browser wars by being bundled with Windows, and therefore most PCs. Bundling the virtualization with Windows will be a major advantage for MS, but it's still no guarantee. They don't even own the server market like they do with desktops

Bull! IBM shot themselves in the foot so many times I am suprised they could still find feet to shoot.

I used OS/2 for years on a dual head set up. The 1st nightmare was configuring the dual heads. Finally a chap in Boca Raton was nice enough to tell me the magic - all was undocumented of course. It worked. The 8514 card and the Svga card actually worked as advertised (by IBM in their Red Books - which I bought)

But... when I switched from a DOS window it froze and blanked the screen. If I switched from an OS/2 session it just froze the screen. I think it was some perverse manager who figured that in order to encourage running OS/2 apps and discourage running DOS apps that they should pull this dirty little trick. As a developer - it just made my life difficult and meant that I couldn't tell my clients how great OS/2 really was... and why? Because it wasn't. How would anyone feel if the moment a window lost focus the OS blanked it? Hell - you don't need to look at your code buddy when you are running the app! What do you want a 2nd monitor for anyways? But in an OS/2 session they didn't need to blank anything.

Next - the single thread problem and the OS locking up. It was never fixed that I know of. I never did upgrade past Warp. I ended up buying NT4.0 much as I hated to do so - and it ran beautifully and ran the monitors properly too.

Then, a blessing was OS/2 apps! Microsoft did it right. I used Brief under NT4.0 - the OS/2 version. It ran BETTER in NT than it ever did on OS/2 and I didn't have to put up with Frozen screens.

Oh.. tech support! I bought and paid for tech support the whole time I had OS/2. I used it many more times than I wanted too. IBM made me wait on hold - and when the level #1 intake operators came on line they INSISTED on getting every hardware configuration detail and details of my CONFIG.SYS file.. and others. This was even if I already KNEW what the problem was and wanted to simply ask for a work around. This happened OVER and OVER and OVER and OVER.

I offered to write a program for IBM which would collect all this information and send it via modem to their tech support people. My GAWD but it was horrible having to give them the same damn information every damn time. How hard would it have been for a company like IBM to set up a damn database indexed for instance by my phone number and record the conf once? Nope!

I wrote letters to them and suggested setting up an app to scan the system for pertinant config and hardware information... so it could be xmitted via modem. I never heard back from them.

Well - I bought Warp. I replaced it with NT 4.0. I have never looked back.

IBM did it all by themselves. It was their own arrogance and incompetance which destroyed the product. Even the simplest issues could not be effectively dealt with.

Re:IBM screwed up OS/2 all by themselves.

[Alioth]

I used to use OS/2 and preferred it to NT4. But that being said, the single threaded UI made a complete mockery of the supposed stability of the OS - OK, so when the UI froze, other programs might still have been able to run in the background, but you had to reboot the machine to make it usable again so that hardly mattered on a desktop system. The single UI thread was the provebial dead mouse in the bottom of the ice cream cone.

I think they did eventually fix it, but by then it was far too late. That was a critical flaw with OS/2 which should have been fixed before OS/2 2.0 was released.

Not necessarily

[vtcodger]

***It was a good run. Seriously-- once MS decides to push you out of the market, you're as good as dead.

• Example 1: WinCE vs. PalmOS
• Example 2: Xbox 360 vs. Playstation 3
• Example 3: Internet Explorer vs. Netscape
• Example 4: Doubledisk/doublespace vs. Stacker
• Example 5: Windows vs. OS/2***

Not necessarily:

• Microsoft Money/Great Plains vs Quicken/Quickbooks
• Windows vs Linux (Server -- a tossup -- the loser, Unix)
• MSN Search vs Google
• Internet Explorer vs Firefox undecided,but leaning toward Firefox)
• Windows vs Linux (Desktop -- still undecided)

Nice quotes...

[dk90406]

Microsoft doesn't want anything BELOW Windows:

" Steven A. Ballmer, Microsofts chief executive, said, "Everybody in the operating system business wants to be the guy on the bottom...."

Microsoft doesn't want anything ABOVE Windows:

"Microsoft feared a competitor's Web browser, running on top of the operating system, could reduce the power of Windows."

And they certainly don't want anyone else IN Windows.

Where does that leave the competition?
(Don't bother to answer; I already know..)

Re:Nice quotes...

[DamnStupidElf]

Where does that leave the competition?

How about AHEAD, looking back and chuckling as Microsoft struggles to catch up?

As usual, it depends...

[Jadecristal]

As usual, it depends. Microsoft seems to like to think that with OEM versions of Windows, they're licensing it to you on a "per system" basis. As in physical system. With VMware Workstation on that system, you could run 4 copies of Windows, all at once, and still have it be on ONE physical system.

It's down - again, of course - to Microsoft wanting to have their cake and eat it too. They want to license Windows to you on a per-system basis, and prevent you from running it however you want on that one system even if they way that you want to run it is more beneficial to you. To put it another way, they want to charge you BOTH for every copy you run of Windows, AND every system you run it on.

To answer your quesiton, if a judge ruled that a physical PC and VMware instance were the same, legally, it would likely (IANAL) lead to a situation different from what you want, since the judge would have been deciding that your one physical machine may in fact be "x" machines where "x" is the number of Windows virtual machines PLUS one for the physical hardware, and they you would be in violation of Microsoft's license. I think it would be preferrable to have the judge decide that VMware constitutes software running on your one copy of Windows licensed to your machine, and that having it start up another Windows session is merely a software function.

I'm not sure, off the top of my head, what the Windows license says - does it say that you may install "one copy on one machine" or does it say that you may "install it on one machine?" Hehe - then we're back to "does a virtual machine" count as a machine.

A tired, unprodound observation

[DoofusOfDeath]

I don't face restrictions like this with OSS. The license terms of most OSS software are simple and not subject to tightening. I *never* have to ask myself if Alan Cox, Linus, etc. will mess with my datacenter plans by saying a future version of Linux may not run on a virtualized system.

Re:A tired, unprodound observation

[Torodung]

True. But Stallman and his GPL v3 crew, that may be another story. ;^)

--
Toro

Propaganda and FUD

[mqatrombone]

This smells like FUD to me. I'm only aware of three changes in licensing about Microsoft operating systems.

1) Windows Server 2003 R2 - 4 licenses for VMs running on Server 2003 Enterprise and unlimited VMs running on Server 2003 Datacenter
2) Windows Vista - Can be run only in a VM on Ultimate and Enterprise, but Enterprise does give you 4 licenses of itself to run in a VM on Enterprise. Value add from Software Assurance? Say it isn't so.
3) Windows Server 2003 R2 - A VM that isn't being run isn't considered to be a license in use.

What is VMWare complaining about? I'm really curious about this white paper.

Re:Propaganda and FUD

[cliffmeece]

Actually I think it is a bit different:

1) Windows Server 2003 R2 - 4 licenses for VMs running on Server 2003 Enterprise and unlimited VMs running on Server 2003 Datacenter

From what I can tell, and the guidance I've gotten from MS and vmware is a slightly different wording:

1) Windows Server 2003 R2 - 1 Physical 2003EE and 4 VMs with 2003EE for each Server 2003 Enterprise Licence on the same hardware.

Ignoring DC edition for the moment, I believe this means you can buy one Enterprise licence and run 4 virtual machines on one physical Vmware ESX host. In other words, I don't think you are limited to running VMs on top of a server with 2003EE installed.

Otherwise, I think MS runs some legal risks, because essentially they would be saying, 'buy one get 4 free....but only if you don't buy the other guys software'.

Re:No VMs? Fine.

[mgblst]

Microsoft got bigger, Windows got more complicated with already so many features, one customer became less important as they got bigger, and no doubt that more than one customer asked for something stupid or impossible.

I can confirm this.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's true.

I work for a company that's implementing a new MS setup.

One of the next big projects here will be a server consolidation and there is only one proven industry solution and that's a few VMWare ESX clusters.

I was flabbergasted when we made a few requests considering setting up some virtualised servers - considering we'll be going down that path anyway.

Apparently, Microsoft does NOT support their own products when they've been installed on a VMWare infrastructure. So we can't get MS backing for our current project if we were to implement it on VMWare servers.

So in the industry it's not uncommon to have 10's or 100's of machines on VMWare ESX infrastructure, and there's MS claiming you loose all support if you go down that path.

Sick if you ask me. It's not like VMWare ESX is an unstable or unproven platform.

Intuit is the counter example

[clay_buster]

Intuit Vs MS Money. Intuit is till on top even though MS Money is given away on may OEM machines.

Competition is a /good/ thing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes MS can be pretty sneaky, but in this case I actively applaud their efforts. VMWare has been sticking it to industry for a long time because they held damn near monopoly in the commercial virtualization space until recently. Their prices are outrageous and they've set up the same 'partner' model that MS employs - that is, they allow for good core baseline systems that you then have to spend more money with other third parties to get additional functionality from.

VirtualPC 2007 still doesn't have a number of features that VMWare Server carries - USB presencing being one of the most notable. As such, it still lags behind the technology curve. That is regretable, and I wish the VPC group would just bite the bullet and put it in. Or, as an alternative, put the ultimatum to VMWare: Join us or go the way of Palm.

On the flip side of the coin, Citrix has certain pieces of technology they were able to flip to MS in exchange for a permanent slice (albeit small) of the pie. Given the choices of a serious competition with an OS they don't own, I'd think they'd be seriously considering the easy way out unless they can prove a solid business model on OSS.

ESX

[Anonymous Coward]

Some posts suggest that VMware will evetually lose to Microsoft. While this may occur for Workstation and GSX (the server based VM), I don't think that this will happen for ESX. ESX is a very thin layer between the hardware and O/S. It is incredibly efficient, and has about 3%-8% overhead. Whereas, O/S based virtualization starts out at about 8% and can go as has as 30%. ESX just does not have all the overhead of a general purpose O/S that needs to support user applications and/or services.

As long as Microsoft feels that virtualization belong in the O/S, I don't see how they can compete with VMware.

The Eu should sue now

[batje14]

instead of waiting until after the damage is done. just make them pay the legal costs of spoiling the market before they make the profits, instead of after they have eliminated the competition.

Come on Neelie, sue them!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neelie_Smit-Kroes

VMWare should make it a selling point...

[PhotoGuy]

In the past, said Mike Neil, general manager of virtualization strategy at Microsoft, customers paid a license fee when Windows was installed on a physical machine. But he said virtual-machine software breaks the tight link between the operating system and the hardware, raising the possibility that customers could be using Windows more but not paying for it. So now, he said, the license fee is based on when a copy of Windows is used, whether in a virtual or physical machine.

If that is their *official* stance, that the software can be used in various places, as long as it's only used once, that's great for VMWare. VMWare can advertise themselves as giving a consistent virtual environment for your VM. Take your VM between your home PC, your work Mac, your Linux cluster at work, no problem. It could *add* flexibility. And VMWare should have the ability to make the virtual machine that Windows sees be 100% consistent across time and machines, so silly activation hassles could be eliminated.

That being said, I doubt MS's official stance is that you can so easily move Windows between different physical machines, even if it's only being used once at a given time.

Someone needs to force these bastards to make an official stand, and stick by it, rather than just tolerating this patronizing marketing speak.

Not if the software you must run is Windows only.

[jotaeleemeese]

But thanks for playing anyway.

I....just....don't...get..it

[krunk7]

This is the rule of the market place:

If you buy something with hard earned cash and it does EXACTLY what it says it'll do, you have absolutely zero ground to stand on as far as complaints.

So Microsoft decided not to support virtual machines on their lower end products. Really all this translates into is a price hike on TCO for enterprise shops. Ok. So? There's only two questions that need to be asked:

1. Does the increased cost/inconvenience outweigh the benefits this platform provides me?
2. Is the hassle, annoyance, quirks, and headaches associated with working with Microsoft products greater then my paycheck?

If the question is yes, then STFU and change platforms or retrain for a new job.

1. "Oh, my, but we can't it just cost so much to move. There's training, and refactoring, and finding new solutions to old problems. Oh my, Oh my." Please refer to question number one that you should be asking yourself, sir.
2. "But, but, I have no choice in what platform is used...I'm just a lowly IT guy who has no firm hand in the purchasing decisions of my department!." Please refer to question number two that you should be asking yourself, sir.

So, all you jaded microsoft fan bois, lowly impotent IT's, and astounded pointy hats that got "blind sided" by this 500 ton 2 mile/hour speeding bullet. I say this:

You bought the cool aid. Now drink it or don't, but please whatever you do keep it to yourself.

It's called supply and demand retards and the only thing that effects it is the almighty dollar. Microsoft will charge as much as it can with as many restrictions of use as YOU will pay for.

Why would you give incorrect examples when....

[ivan256]

...there are real ones?

With the possible example of #4 (did drive compression really catch on all that much before it was included with DOS?) all of your examples are bogus. Either Microsoft hasn't taken over those markets (#1 & 2), the competitor never had the lead to lose (#5), or the competitor is still kicking in one form or another (#3).

Yet there are real examples you neglected.

WordPerfect?
1-2-3?
Notes?
Netware/Fileservices?

Somehow, though, I suspect that your real motive was to slip the 360/PS3 troll in there, considering that you failed to mention that they haven't pushed Nintendo out dispite their great (to the tune of $4 billion dollars in expenditures) effort.

Competition

[dosle]

When two software companies battle it out over Virtualization, the consumer ultimately wins.

Re:Competition

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you end up with two entirely incompatible solutions, and the customer is forced to buy both.

Anyone try to get support from Microsoft w/VMWare?

[ACMENEWSLLC]

Microsoft makes you jump through hoops if you use VMWare and not VirtualServer;

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=897615

The article is below.

SUMMARY
Hardware virtualization software allows you to run multiple operating system instances simultaneously on a single computer. Microsoft has two software offerings, Virtual PC and Virtual Server, which provide this functionality. Third parties also have software on the market providing this functionality. This article addresses support provided by Microsoft for its software running in conjunction with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

Microsoft does not test or support Microsoft software running in conjunction with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. For Microsoft customers who do not have a Premier-level support agreement, Microsoft will require the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. Where the issue is confirmed to be unrelated to the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software, Microsoft will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running in conjunction with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.

For Microsoft customers who have a Premier-level support agreement, Microsoft will use commercially reasonable efforts to investigate potential issues with Microsoft software running in conjunction with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. As part of that investigation, Microsoft may require the issue to be reproduced independently from the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software. Where issues are confirmed to be unrelated to the non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software, Microsoft will support its software in a manner that is consistent with support provided when that software is not running in conjunction with non-Microsoft hardware virtualization software.
MORE INFORMATION
Third-party software discussed in this article is produced by companies that are independent of Microsoft. Microsoft makes no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding the performance or reliability of third-party software. Third parties are responsible for the testing of their software running in conjunction with Microsoft software. Microsoft software may not work as intended in third-party virtualized hardware environments.

Competitors...

[Bert64]

// "And Microsoft has no obligation to facilitate a competitor."

And nor do vmware, although a lot of their newer management tools now require windows, thus facilitating their competitors.
Any business that microsoft has chosen to compete with, but yet relies on microsoft for a significant portion of their revenue is in trouble... Just look at novell, netware was relying upon microsoft based clients...
What vmware need to do, is work hard on encouraging the use of non microsoft software with their products, and make sure that none of their products depend on microsoft. After all, if your infrastructure is partly microsoft based anyway, there will always be reasoning (and pushy salesmen) to make it entirely microsoft based, and no longer need to deal with additional suppliers like vmware.

Re:I guess that VMWare should not have played in M

[mrpaco18]

While I agree with your point, Adobe and Intuit aren't going anywhere anytime soon. In fact, both Adobe and Intuit have seen a revenue growth since 2004 of 18% and 12.4% respectively, and a respective profit growth of 33.8% and 20.4%. To say that they are slowly disappearing is nonsense.

Why?

[Anonymous Coward]

Virtualization in Windows is good for us.

The only one who is going to be harmed is cygwin/mingw32 because people will run OSS software in VirtualDistributions [VirtualDistributions will appear in the next year and will be minimal ISO files for virtualizing a linux environment in windows]. And enough with all the crap to make applications portable for cygwin. Just make it run on linux and it is automatically portable to a virtualized linux.

And if you want to virtualize windows, you can, with kqemu which is now GPL. And your customers can virtualize linux and run your software. What is the problem?

VMWare will lose the money and I should care, why?

If MS wins

[nurb432]

Will suck to lose VMware for those of us that dont do windows, or dont want the extra overhead of having to run windows just to provide a "service".

Well, there is always QEMU i suppose, but its not enterprise stable yet to stake your business on it.

Ideots wil pay anything

[ChrisA90278]

So the people who run data centers with VMware will find it very expensive to run a zillion copies of Vista on one PC. Many a few of them will stop doing that. They can convert one virtual machine at a time over to Linux or Solaris. Both are free. When you use VMs it is very easy to swap out OSes and now Microsoft has given them some incentive to switch.

So why stay with MS Windows?

Bill Gates got rich based on just one true observation: There are a LOT more people who don't understand computers than there are computer experts. Why not sell to the first group? He was right and before the 1980's everyone was selling only to the second group. So he continues to sell crap to people who can't tel crap what they see it and a lt of these people manage data centers. There are more people then you'd think who know they don't know anything about computers except how to point and click through Windows menus and no way on earth will these people switch out to so other OS, they'd be helpless and they know it. They will pay ANYTHNG to continue with Windows. MS knows this and will ratchet the prise up. They know they've lost the guys with good technical backgrounds.

Re:I guess that VMWare should not have played in M

[drinkypoo]

Eveyr company wants to play in MS's backyard, build it up to be profitable, and then are surprised that the hog wants their profits through any means possible. What amazes me is that companies have not learned that if they put their best work on MS and slight or even not build on other platforms, they kill their long term viability.

But VMware also runs on linux, and hosts practically all x86 operating systems, and they are working on a MacOSX version as well.

Nice try there though.

Re:I guess that VMWare should not have played in M

[LocalH]

Adobe isn't going anywhere. They own a vast chunk of the media/content creation market.

Re:I guess that VMWare should not have played in M

[WindBourne]

The only thing keeping Intuit alive is their turbo tax (a virtual monopoly that is slowly losing ground), and the fact that they recently moved Quicken into niche markets. Ms all but owns the market that Quicken had less than a decade ago. But MS is now targetting the niche markets as well.

Adobe has done ok so far, but MS has only really recently turned their eye on them. They are now starting to target them product line for product line.

When a company insists on doing their top work on Windows only, then it allows MS to eventually own them. Basically, MS has the resources to target individual companies and win eventually. When it is a pack of wolves, such as the Linux world, then MS needs something like the Feds to the job for them.

bundling virtualization with Windows

[stites]

"Steven A. Ballmer, Microsoft's chief executive, said, "Everybody in the operating system business wants to be the guy on the bottom," the software that controls the hardware."

"When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system."

It seems that Microsoft has decided to bundle their virtualization into Windows in their usual attempt to extend their Windows monopoly into new markets. Also as usual Microsoft is the trailing edge of technology, i.e. the last company into the market.

There are some very real disadvantages to Microsoft bundling their virtualization software into Windows. The first problem is that the virtualization problem begs for a modular solution. The complexity of running a variety of operating systems as application programs begs for the virtualization software to be kept distinct from any of the client operating systems.

In the case of bundling virtualization into Windows Microsoft will run into the same development problem that they had with Longhorn. Windows has ignored modularity for release after release. New features have been consistently bundled into Windows in a deliberately non-modular design. The result is that adding any new feature requires a rewrite of Windows. This problem with Longhorn resulted in huge development costs to produce very little. Now Microsoft is going to rewrite Windows to bundle the logically very complex virtualization feature? I predict that the effort will either fail or take an incredibly long amount of time and an enormous amount of money.

Microsoft may already realize this. This may be one of the reasons that Microsoft is backing Novell's support for the Xen project. Microsoft may be hedging their bet in case the Windows bundled virtualization project fails.

Unfortunately, the open source virtualization projects, Xen and KVM, also are integrated into an operating system, i.e. Linux. I think that the VMware design is superior to either Xen and KVM. One integrated virtualization OS in Linux is fine. KVM should remain that integrated virtualization system and Xen should be developed into a completely stand alone operating system.

I predict that the end result of the virtualization race will be VMware competing with a GPL3 stand alone virtualization OS. I doubt that the bundled Windows virtualization candidate will be finished in time to enter the race.

--
Steve Stites

I love Ballmer

[flibuste]

When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is that virtualization is something that should be built into the operating system."

Just because he's a prick and I like to ridicule Ballmer, I'd ask So why didn't you do it in Vista? but something tells me Monkey Man won't admit they didn't think about it before a competitor did. That's so Microsoft-like...

MS Legal options may be interesting

[hey!]

But they can legally, then when it comes time to do a license audit they will discover how the licensed software is being used, and you can get dinged.

As a monopolist -- what's more a company convicted of abuse of their monopoly power -- attempts to use bundling to steer users towards their preferred solutions is asking for trouble.

Suppose they have a virtualization friendly license that includes their VM solution. That's certainly asking for anti-trust litigation, because they're using their desktop OS monopoly to force you to buy a product over a competitive product. You just can't license their OS for use on a VM without also licensing their VM solution.

Now, suppose they try to argue that the the VM software is bundled with the OS, and the licensing of Windows for use as a guest OS is a separate issue altogether. It seems to me that this is a hard position to argue, unless the VM software has some use without buying the VM friendly licenses.

Now that's verry interesting. You could have legions of Windows users all set to run BSD and Linux VMs without spending a dime, but who would have to fork over dough to MS to run Windows.

The third option is something that Ballmer seems to be ruling out here: licensing the VM software and the rights to use Windows in a VM separately.

Honestly, I'm not sure that they wouldn't be better off simply letting people run Windows in a VM, maybe with a limited number of instances, provided that it only runs on one real machine. This would satisfy the users' needs for VM technology without incenting them to try different operating systems; it would take the wind out of VMWare's sails without handing them an antitrust case.

Vista Conspiracy Theory: reason for trusted comput

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft knows that vista is a joke,

They can say this is as secure as a computer can get.... without Trusted Computing.

Re:I guess that VMWare should not have played in M

[leabre]

Except that VMWare didn't build up in MS' backyard. MS purchased Connectix VirtualPC back in 2004 and camp'd out in VMWare's backyard. In any case, VMWare has a far superior product to VPC and Virtual Server, anyday. They also have a version of their tools for non-Windows platforms. The point is that VMWare was in the virtualization market long before MS was around.

Thanks,
Leabre

Microsoft's devilish plans!

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is the reason that our society and work places are in a state of endless flux! They have no creativity left anymore. Their acquisition of Connectrix has not delivered anything. The same people of Connectrix joined hands and came up with this little start up called VirtualBox. They were far better than the win32 folks.

Why can't they come up with an argument supported by a competetive software. Why must they always use tactics that are so unreasonable. They are in the most dangerous phase of their business life. It might very well be possible that this firm will get banned by EU and in US (several States have attempted that already and they might just succeed). And the looming danger of lawsuits will pump their resources dry. As a Microsoft engineer or employee , I can't imagine how you can live in fear all the time.

It is news

[gmfink]

Check out the VDI initiative that many are already implementing. Virtual Desktops means Vista VMs.