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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."'"
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.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
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.
...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 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.
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.
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.
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.
If 76 Trombones really led the big parade, why did they have anyone else in it?
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.
I manage 100s of VMs with VMWare's Virtual Infrastructure, and I call bullshit on your whole post my good man.
... 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. (*)"
"Actual state of management software is
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.