Microsoft Hyper-V Leaves Linux Out In The Cold

whitehartstag writes to mention that Microsoft has announced their new Hyper-V as feature-complete. Unfortunately the list of supported systems is disappointingly short. "No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing. Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone — you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V."

Comments

WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[mwilliamson]

Microsoft so totally missed the virtualization boat that came by a decade or so ago... I'd liken buying a virtualization product from Microsoft about with buying a vehicle from Merrill Lynch.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[TheRaven64]

They own Connectix, which was one of two companies offering a decent desktop virtualisation package a few years ago. They also got a good x86 emulator in the deal.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[moderatorrater]

It also shows they're out of sync with the current server setups that people have. The number of Microsoft-only shops are dwindling, and they're purposely leaving themselves out of the mixed market.

Aren't they supposed to dominate a market before cutting off interoperability (like IE for mac)?

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[recoiledsnake]

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

Misinformed blogger makes a flamebait article that reads like ex-lover's childish rant complete with doomsday threats and with a inflammatory headline, the 'editor' doesn't do any editorial work and the hundreds of misguided comments below will just bash on MS and earn insightful, informative and interesting mod points. Also, this will be repeated in the comments in other articles as the gospel truth because most people don't even RTFA, forget about actually seeing if there is a grain of truth in it. In other words, just another day on Slashdot.

If you really want to know about Hyper V, go here .

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Blakey Rat]

Stop letting off hot air on the dumbass article. See installing fedora core 8 on hyper-v . Even Ubuntu server is being used by people on HyperV. SUSE is supported in the sense of calling up MS's support desk and talking to them about it. But Linux distributions work just fine. This is just MS's way of telling people that they're on their own if they try other distributions(this is usually true for Linux servers anyway).

In the Microsoft world, "unsupported" means literally "we do not support this." i.e. "if you call us for support on this, we won't answer your question." There are a million things that Microsoft doesn't support, but still work perfectly-- Microsoft doesn't support typing in an IP address to Windows Remote Desktop Client, to use a particularly strange example I came across a few years ago, and yet it works fine and always has.

I don't know what Linux people think "unsupported" means, but they have the wrong idea whatever it is.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[afidel]

It doesn't matter. When we talked to MS about Hyper-V they flat out told us we weren't their target market (we're a smaller Fortune 500 company). They basically are targeting Hyper-V at the SMB shop that's outgrown the everything and the kitchen sink model of Windows SMB Server. They don't have the tools to manage large deployments efficiently and so they aren't that worried about the large shop that wants to run Solaris x86 and Linux on the same box. For large virtualization projects you're still looking at VMWare or Xen with the Xen stack looking to make a LOT of progress over the next year or two once the Citrix initiatives kick in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[OnlineAlias]

While I agree with you that most of this is FUD, the fact that the other distros "work just fine" is irrelevant. "Not supported" means, to the enterprise world, not doable. Meaning, Microsoft VM ain't gonna happen in the big shops.

I think that there is a valid overall point to this submission, regardless of its hyperbole. It is that Microsoft's arrogance to think that they don't have to support other distros is exactly a fall back to their old ways. And this time, giving it away for free or making it a part of the Windows operating system isn't going to save Hyper-V like it did to save so many of their other products. For this fight of the hypervisor (essentially the new OS of the data center), VMWare has all the market share and lock in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[nuknuk]

Hewlett Packard only supports Red Hat Enterprise linux on their DL lines of server hardware. Does this mean that other versions of linux don't work on them? No. It just means that if you want to run something other than that, they do not have on-site tech support that can assist you. They have to pick their battles, and they chose Red Hat (in the case of HP) or they picked SUSE (in the case of Microsoft). Nothing unusual about this, you see this all the time at the enterprise level.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[dougr650]

Sorry, but although the original article does exhibit some characteristics of an overblown rant, the main point is still valid. Most companies bigger than a mom-and-pop operation simply cannot use something that is "unsupported," regardless of whether it anecdotally "works just fine" or not.

If a user cannot call the Hyper-V tech support regarding an issue they are having running RHEL on Hyper-V and receive a proper response other than "we don't support that," then it is effectively useless and cannot form any part of that company's virtualization strategy. It may work just fine, but there are many companies with specific corporate policies prohibiting use of unsupported software, and in some cases, running into a serious problem with unsupported software can be seen as a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley and may be construed as negligence.

Whether it works OK or not with other linux distributions is irrelevant. Without real support, it's a non-starter for most businesses. That's not MS-bashing or Linux-fanboyism, it's just plain fiscal responsibility.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Sorry, but although the original article does exhibit some characteristics of an overblown rant, the main point is still valid. Most companies bigger than a mom-and-pop operation simply cannot use something that is "unsupported," regardless of whether it anecdotally "works just fine" or not. "

Right, but the only other option available to Microsoft is to 'support' all those Linux and who-knows-what-else distributions at an enormous price, when it brings very little benefit to 99% of their customers. It simply isn't worth it, and 'supporting' other OS'es isn't really Microsoft's responsibility anyway. This article is purely pigswill for the Slashbots to wallow in.

Re:WTF does Microsoft know about virtualization?

[dhavleak]

If a user cannot call the Hyper-V tech support regarding an issue they are having running RHEL on Hyper-V and receive a proper response other than "we don't support that," then it is effectively useless and cannot form any part of that company's virtualization strategy. It may work just fine, but there are many companies with specific corporate policies prohibiting use of unsupported software, and in some cases, running into a serious problem with unsupported software can be seen as a violation of Sarbanes-Oxley and may be construed as negligence. You're correct that for most companies, not supported = cannot use.

You're not correct in assuming that MS can take the lead in supporting RHEL (and other linuxes) on Hyper-V.

To support something, you need to test it thoroughtly and be sure yourself that it works. Then at least when a customer calls with an issue, you know that their scenario is supposed to work.

Now Novell has been partnering with MS for about 2 years now. One of the things they will have done, is to run the gamut of their test automation on Hyper-V virtualized instances of SUSE. Based on this they will give MS the 'green-light' saying 'you are ok to support SuSE on Hyper-V'.

RH has no such working relationship with MS. They may want to (I have no idea), but based on the community reaction to Novell's partnership, I doubt they would enter into one even if they wanted to. Without that, how is MS supposed to validate RHEL?

That's not MS-bashing or Linux-fanboyism, it's just plain fiscal responsibility. I understand. And I'll point out that this isn't MS-fanboyism either (since I'll probably get crucified if I don't). It's just reality -- to support s/w you need to test it first. RH is in the best position to test RHEL.

The old arrogance.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate" arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft. Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

Re:The old arrogance.

[the_humeister]

Interesting. That's what people said 10 years ago...

Re:The old arrogance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Excuse me, but 1998 called and they would like their comment back.

Let's not jump the gun...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Are they only supporting SUSE E.S. as an ongoing policy? Or is it just the only one they've certified as of the first release?

Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[Ungrounded Lightning]

Shouldn't any distribution based on a kernel build that doesn't require anything more or significantly different from the underlying hardware, relative to SUSE E.S. work just as well?

Put another way:

If you have a problem with another distribution under Hyper-V, and Microsoft is refractory about support, shouldn't you be able to replicate the problem under SUSE and make them fix THAT?

Re:Let's not jump the gun...

[bguthro]

SuSe posted their patches to the Xen-devel list mid-feb. If other distros want to take their patches, they would be able to run paravirtualized in Windows. The patches met with some resistance from the Xen developers - so if they get into upstream development remains to be seen..

So?

[filesiteguy]

Microsoft can choose to support whichever companies that they want. AFAIK, only Novell has signed the Munich Agreement with Microsoft, so it makes sense for Microsoft to exclude the others. At a recent Launch event for Windows Workstation 2008, Visual Studio 2008 and SQL 2008, I saw only Novell was present (with a large booth) showing off Linux products and virtualized Windows environments. (Though it was funny listening to Steve B. try and pronounce SUSE.)

Overblown

[Ed Avis]

What a storm in a teacup. Will anyone except Microsoft shops want to run Microsoft's virtualization product? Will they care that Debian isn't a 'supported platform', whatever that means? It's not as if other Linux versions won't run; just you won't be able to get Microsoft's famously good technical support to help with setting them up.

Re:Overblown

[moderatorrater]

Will anyone except Microsoft shops want to run Microsoft's virtualization product A lot of companies have a mixed environment for whatever reason. A company I used to work for had 90% of its production servers as CentOS, but one of the servers used Windows Server with SQL Server. Having a uniform environment is great if you can manage it, but a lot can't. If they want to use virtualization for some of those lesser used servers, they're going to have to turn to another platform. Releasing enterprise-level software that doesn't serve most enterprises doesn't seem like a smart move on Microsoft's part.

funny tag

[SCHecklerX]

not knowing what hyper-v is, wtfishyperv came to mind as a tag. Fishy Pervert?

shooting selves in foot

[SCHecklerX]

If they won't virtualize other OS's, then they are not an option to be the main os in places that make use of virtualization.

You'd think they'd WANT to support everything, and do it well, so that people would actually *want* to choose them as the host os.

Stupid.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[KevMar]

Not supported does not mean that it will not run it.

Microsoft does not support the piracy of its software, but people still do it with out microsoft's support.

The fact taht they mention one distibution speaks wonders for them. At the same time they are saying you can run linux, but you didn't hear it from us.

If your running linux, support is something you do yourself most of the time anyway.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[ArsonSmith]

And looking at VMWare's new beta 3i product it gets rid of the host OS completely and loads nothing but the vmware hypervisor. It's designed to be only 16M and fit in a flash chip.

Have a VMWare cluster setup with vmotion and you want to upgrade hosts. Slap in another 3i box, pre-configured, turn it on and let VMWare rebalance the hosts.

Re:shooting selves in foot

[Firehed]

Not supported indeed doesn't mean "won't work". However, when the competition DOES support what you're looking to do, which are you going to pick? Corporate policies and such be damned - if you have two options, one of which WILL work and the other MAY work, you'd have to be pretty daft to go with the latter.

Maybe the will work.

[LWATCDR]

Notice that these are supported systems. That doesn't mean that other OS's will not work.
Novell probably agreed to help Microsoft support Suse Enterprise. Redhat isn't playing nicley with Microsoft so Microsoft isn't going to play nice with Redhat.
Fedora? Not a chance. Fedora is cutting edge code. I have no idea why people use this for servers when there are better distros to use on a server.
CentOS? Well this is a better distro to use on server than Fedora but it is Redhat without the support and price tag.
Finally BSD? BSD is dieing..... Just kidding. I just don't think Microsoft feels that it is worth the time.
What I didn't see is if Solaris is on the list.

So buy VMWare or use Xen folks.
Really if you want to be a Microsoft shop and run Linux then you now have an option of a Microsoft blessed Linux. If you are not a "Microsoft" shop then you can use VMWare, Xen, or VirtuaBox and have a lot more options.
I guess on the bright side they are supporting a Linux distro. It could have been a Windows only vm system.

Hyper-V is what now?

[Matt Perry]

And just what is Hyper-V? The summary doesn't explain it. I even went against the grain here read the article (gasp!) and the article doesn't explain it. It implies that it might have something to do with virtualization but doesn't really explain itself. The "article" appeared to be more of a comment than news.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[ArsonSmith]

It's a conglomeration of tech from Xen's Hypervisor and work done by citrix and Novell to make windows the DomU in Xen.

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[Loconut1389]

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/virtualization-consolidation.aspx

"
Introducing Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V

Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, the next-generation hypervisor-based server virtualization technology, allows you to make the best use of your server hardware investments by consolidating multiple server roles as separate virtual machines (VMs) running on a single physical machine. With Hyper-V, you can also efficiently run multiple different operating systems--Windows, Linux, and others--in parallel, on a single server, and fully leverage the power of x64 computing.

Key Features of Hyper-V:

        * New and Improved Architecture. New 64-bit micro-kernelized hypervisor architecture enables Hyper-V to provide a broad array of device support methods and improved performance and security.
        * Broad OS Support. Broad support for simultaneously running different types of operating systems, including 32-bit and 64-bit systems across different server platforms, such as Windows, Linux, and others.
        * Symmetric Multiprocessors (SMP) Support. Ability to support up to four multiple processors in a virtual machine environment enables you to take full advantage of multi-threaded applications in a virtual machine.
        * Network Load Balancing. Hyper-V includes new virtual switch capabilities. This means virtual machines can be easily configured to run with Windows Network Load Balancing (NLB) Service to balance load across virtual machines on different servers.
        * Hardware Sharing Architecture. With the new virtual service provider/virtual service client (VSP/VSC) architecture, Hyper-V provides improved access and utilization of core resources, such as disk, networking, and video.
        * Quick Migration. Hyper-V enables you to rapidly migrate a running virtual machine from one physical host system to another with minimal downtime, leveraging familiar high-availability capabilities of Windows Server and System Center management tools.
        * Virtual Machine Snapshot. Hyper-V provides the ability to take snapshots of a running virtual machine so you can easily revert to a previous state, and improve the overall backup and recoverability solution.
        * Scalability. With support for multiple processors and cores at the host level and improved memory access within virtual machines, you can now vertically scale your virtualization environment to support a large number of virtual machines within a given host and continue to leverage quick migration for scalability across multiple hosts.
        * Extensible. Standards-based Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) interfaces and APIs in Hyper-V enable independent software vendors and developers to quickly build custom tools, utilities, and enhancements for the virtualization platform.
"

Re:Hyper-V is what now?

[recoiledsnake]

The "article" appeared to be more of a comment than news. You must be new here. The article was not posted because of content but because of the headline(which basically implies that Suse Enterprise Linux is not Linux, WTF?). Microsoft says in their pitch that Hyper-V supports Linux, and a random bloggers says they don't, at all. Both are wrong in their own way :(

Define 'Suppported'

[kneecap]

Could it be that only SUSE is 'officialy' supported and that other Operating Sytems will work anyway? It seems that the major requirement for Linux (including SUSE) is a 'Xen-Enabled' kernel.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx

bullet vs foot

[zappepcs]

No, it's not a little early. When you make an announcement, the lid is open and Pandora's legend is all over your shoes. The announcement did not say Suse is the first to be supported, it simply only listed it as supported. AND when you drink the coolaid, do you ever feel guilty? MS has a reputation that spoils any mis-step that the marketing droids might make. In fact this is so prevalent that not many people actually believe MS unless it is in writing and PJ has signed off on it. No matter how unfair that might be, one only has to look at the circus that OOXML has become to know that MS are not to be trusted... sigh

Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[Mactrope]

Why would you go to the trouble when other solutions just work? Trusting Microsoft to run Linux ... there is no propper analogy for such a stupid thing.

Re:Decades of experience is not jumping the gun.

[smellsofbikes]

>Trusting Microsoft to run Linux ... there is no propper analogy for such a stupid thing. Sure there is, and it is, of course, a car analogy: it's like trusting the keys to your best friend's father's Ferrari 250 GT to two parking attendants.

Troll article

[recoiledsnake]

Hyper-V is not a full fledged cpu/hardware emulator like VMWare and is more of a hypervisor which needs support from the client operating system (like Xen which they have a licencing deal with). This is because there are some hardware x86 instructions which conflict each other when run on two operating systems at the same time. So, there actually needs to be some client side code that needs to plug into the Linux kernel code. Right now, I guess only Novell has it in as they are MS's partner.

There could be several licensing problems with third party patents and licenses before releasing it as GPL. Or, it might not have been released now because Hyper-V has already been delayed a lot and the team must be in a hurry to push out the beta instead of testing it against every distribution of Linux in the wild.

Last of all, the headline. Novell SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10 SP1 isn't Linux? The headline should've said only SUSE Linux Enterprise Server was supported. Instead, we have a inflammatory headline designed to rake in the hits from angry visitors. And it worked.

Re:Troll article

[pythas]

Shitty article with a misleading headline posted on Slashdot about Microsoft? I'M SHOCKED.

I've been running Ubuntu Server using Hyper-V since 2008 came out without any problems.

Re:Par for the course.

[robertjw]

Buy something that works and screw it up while breaking everything else.

Hell of a business model, isn't it?

wtfishyperv?

[kinthalas]

I don't think I want to know anything about a "fishy perv."

Re:wtfishyperv?

[xtracto]

you could go ask at ExpertSexChange.com if you are curious...

It Could Be Desperation...

[NeverVotedBush]

I don't see why the parent was modded as flamebait. I think it is a valid observation or else Microsoft would have done better at interoperability.

Maybe it isn't arrogance that caused Microsoft to go this current route. It could be they are trying to force Linux out of their (presumed) territory. It could be an act of desperation as Microsoft watches the world move to open source operating systems and applications. These new Eee PC platforms that cost only a hundred bucks or so will be pulling the rug out from under Microsoft as they have to forgo profit just to stay in the game. And as finances in the USA tighten up, there will be even more pressure to leave the expensive proprietary closed source world behind in favor of the open and free siren song of Linux.

Priced Microsoft products recently? It's unbelievable -- especially when you can get most all functionality for free. And Linux is now much friendlier than it was before. While I am a Linux fan-boy, the facts are what they are and Microsoft is just as capable of seeing it as we are.

And any business setting that wants/needs to maintain some MS compatibility ought to look at Codeweaver's Crossover Office. I use it here and it lets me run Microsoft Office apps under Linux with no virtualization needed. They install and run fine. Same for a lot of other software that supposedly is Windows-only.

The old saw

[Anonymous Coward]

So, it looks like the old "We don't have to interoperate" arrogance is still going strong at Microsoft. Let's see if they still think that way in another ten years.

You guys said the same exact thing ten years ago... and MS still doesn't need to interoperate.

Care to make a wager you will repeat the same statement ten years from now?

From the OP:

"No offense to SUSE Enterprise Server crowd, but only providing SUSE support in Hyper-V is a huge mistake. By not supporting Red Hat, Fedora, CentOS, and BSD, Microsoft is telling us Hyper-V is a Microsoft only technology. More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking. That's disappointing. Sure, if you are a Microsoft only shop, Hyper-V will be an option for virtualization. But so will VMware and XenServer. But if you run a mixed shop, Hyper-V won't solve your problems alone -- you'll have to also add VMware or Xen to your virtualized data center portfolio. Or just go with VMware and Xen and forego Hyper-V."

Yes... because it's all about choice... so having MS be one of the choices is SO FREAKING HORRIBLE!!! OMG!!!

As usual, the "all about choice" crowd proves that they really mean all about choice, so long as none of your choices dares to be Microsoft. IMO, you guys should be happy they provided official support for anything at all.

Re:The old saw

[PitaBred]

Sure, go ahead and choose Microsoft. The problem is that Microsoft has proven again and again that if you choose them, you can choose nothing else, ever. If you're fine with tying all your company's infrastructure to the whims of a convicted monopolist, feel free to do so, but sane people aren't ok with that. If Microsoft says your bug isn't important enough (if they even deem you worthy of acknowledgment), you are fucked, period. You can't switch to a competitor, you have too much invested in your infrastructure and if you have to change one thing, you get to change everything.

I'm not against having Microsoft as a choice. I just think people should realize WHAT they're choosing when they choose Microsoft, which is basically becoming their bitch and paying for the privilege.

wtfishyperv

[patternmatch]

This story is tagged "wtfishyperv", which I first read not as "wtf is hyper v", but "wt fishy perv"...soo confused.

Re:Par for the course.

[Mactrope]

Hell's business model has blown through $40 billion in three years. Looks like a loser to me.

Hook Patches

[tinkerghost]

According to some digging, it seems that SUSE has tweaked some XEN code to properly work with the MS Hypervisor. The patch isn't well accepted in the Xen-dev group & may not make it to the reference build.
So, anyone using the SuSE patch can run under this, but at the cost of loosing their supplied kernel.

Re:Little early

[andreyw]

The article is FUD. Clearly, "Linux" is supported. It just says that the only distro officially supported is SUSE. Everything else is in the "hey, I got it to work" domain. And seriously... it not their job to make sure it works with every distro. Their job is to make sure the linux kernel can run efficiently in it. That's it.

Re:Microsoft is using old rules in a new game

[nxtw]

Well put, I installed Win2008 Server last week to start doing some testing for a client and was surprised that the installation process puts games on the machine and has folders like My Pictures and My Music.

The installation process does not install games and picture/music playing software by default. You need to select the "Desktop Experience", which does install this kind of software.

I mean really, is this supposed to be a serious server operating system? If "yes" then why would you have such things installed? It makes no sense to me at all.

If the system is designed to be used as a terminal server, for example.

Guess WHAT?

[killmofasta]

"More Mt. Redmond, Microsoft center of the universe thinking."

and:

THERE IS NO EASTER BUNNY.

Were you expecting they would release it open source?

Compatibility and support

[LLcj]

there's a difference. folks, the listed OS's are supported by MSFT...ie, you can call them up for support. there's a difference. The other OS's operate just fine in many cases. They just haven't gone through qualification and you can't call MSFT for help. umm, how many folks out there run apps that currently aren't "supported" on VMware and Xen?

Re:Par for the course.

[PitaBred]

You realize that Microsoft BOUGHT the Virtual Server product from Connectix? They didn't actually make it. The quality of Virtual Server has no bearing on the quality of Hyper V, since they were developed by completely different companies, let alone teams.

Given that Hyper-V doesn't actually support virtualization except under Microsoft's shroud (Novell is part of it now), I see no way that it is going to actually do anything other than try to lock people into yet more Microsoft proprietary incompatible bullshit.

Re:BSD

[LWATCDR]

I know it is a joke but they could emulate the old Windows API aka WINE and come up with a new clean API. Just like Apple did with OS/X.

Novell should expect to have their code rejected

[Burz]

Do you think XAN and other projects like the possibility of incorporating MS patents into their codebase?

Novell have stated that their main focus is now 'interoperability' via the Microsoft patents that have been granted to them. Novell's corporate culture has no compelling reason to avoid implementing MS patents; quite the opposite in fact. Their execs are making increasingly flaky, shift statements WRT patents as well.

I don't think it odd at all that they are mistrusted.

supported != usable but....

[leuk_he]

The article mentions only the latest OS that are supported.

If i look at the release notes, even fewer OS are supported:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=3ED582F0-F844-40BA-B692-230845AF1149&displaylang=en

What you often see is that virtualisation is used to put old application that are only reliable on old but unsupported OS (like windows 2000 or NT 4.0) run on virtualized hardware.

So i bet they the list of operating OS will be longer. ( win98, NT4.0, windows 2000 server, old SP1 XP1 to mention a few)

If these are not SUPPORTED however then for big corporations will take a look at the competitors for a virtialisation server that supports old OS.