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Microsoft Unveils Virtualization Strategy
billstewart writes "The Wall Street Journal reports that Microsoft will be announcing a virtualization strategy on Tuesday. Of course there's plenty of focus on the competition with VMware, including the obligatory reference to Microsoft's entry into the browser wars prior to cutting off Netscape's air supply. The pieces of the picture will include: an alliance with Citrix Systems, owners of XenSource; acquisition of privately held Calista Technologies of San Jose, which has software that speeds up the performance of applications running in a virtualized environment; and lower price for Windows Vista used on virtualized computers. Microsoft also reversed its earlier position and will now allow the Home Basic and Home Premium versions of Vista to run under virtualization. The company confirmed its plans to deliver its Hyper-V hypervisor within six months of the launch of Windows Server 2008 (betas available now), which is expected this quarter."
If I were a prospective client, I would think about the effective way IE killed the then king netscape, sure.
I would also think about the way IE turned into an awfully modularized insecure POS after winning.
Let's just hope Xen makers don't play the part of NCSA Mosaic.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Xen won't squeeze VMWare out until they get themselves a freakin' UI that is usable.
How we know is more important than what we know.
HaHaHa!
This is Microsoft we're talking about here - there is no room in the marketplace!
On a serious note - virtualisation plays a major part in computing today, if Microsoft's os is going to be virtualised it will be done on thier terms and of course deeply integrated.
If they want to do this that's fine... . . However, typically Microsoft's business practise is to try and 'remove' any competitive products from the marketplace - vmware had better be sharp because thier life is about to get more difficult.
When an emerging market is noticed by Microsoft they seem to wait and see how it develops. If it appears to be profitable they wade in with thier own version and take it all even if thier own product is inferior - they can use thier OS as leverage (which has happend time and time again).
Again, it's Microsoft's monopoly status that allows them to do this and I have a problem with that.
If vmware are forced out the market at least there are open-source alternatives available which fortunately cannot be forced out the market (unless patent issues are raised?).
Since you asked, Microsoft obtained VirtualPC when they bought out Connectix.
Whether you go for their whole strategy or not, a good thing to come out of their announcement is them allowing non-Ultimate Vista to be virtualisable (or non-Business, or whichever of the twenty levels they arbitrarily set it at the last time).
I'm on OS X and run a VMware image of XP for a couple of apps. I have no need for Vista, but should a need arise I can now upgrade to the lower versions and carry on running. MS gets some money from me it previously wouldn't have had and I can still use my platform of choice.
That's good news for people.
Cheers,
Ian
I know that slashdot eds are supposed to be the some of the worst ever, but MS is in the running... One of the suppported OS's for the Hyper v is.... Microsoft Office 97 or later version
The below is taken from the MS website.
"System Requirements
* Supported Operating Systems: Windows Vista; Windows XP
Microsoft Office 97 or later version"
What I find missing in all the comments so far is the completely different approach to virtualization that VMware has when compared to MS and Xen. The in MS/Xen model, the hypervisor is flat out part of the OS, and the VMs rely on some sort of Dom0 or master partition where most of the real drivers exist.
In the VMware model (think ESX 3i), the hypervisor is a completely different layer that sits under the OS, so there is no direct OS dependency. All the drivers are specially designed and engineered to be high performance for that kind of environment, a reason why it scales so much better (at least when compared to Xen) and also a reason why they don't support all the devices out there.
I think for most of us that care about freedom of choice, the VMware model makes more sense going forward. A good, OS independent, thin hypervisor with standard open interfaces (VMI) for any guest OS kernel that wants to leverage paravirtualization, or just a full hardware abstraction via the VMM for the ones that do not, coupled with good, open source set of instrumentation tools and accelerated drivers.
On top of that, VMware has open sourced their virtual disk format (VMDK), has collaborated with Xen on a completely open VM portable packaging format (OVF), and has a number of fully open source programs. This is allowing the developing of the Virtual Appliance concept and has facilitated the penetration of Linux in places that wouldn't have otherwise.
Now, because I work for VMware (use as disclaimer also), I can tell you that the bread and butter for us is NOT the hypervisor, but all the stack we built on top of it, that includes disaster recovery, lab automation, VM lifecycle and a bunch of other very very high level stuff.
Still, competition is good for the market, open source or not, and as users, we'll all benefit.