End of VMware in sight : Honest opinion or backdoor scuttlebutt?

Geez, I could have frozen but the guy who wrote this article is pretty cozy with the Xen3.0 so it's pretty obvious that everything about VMware was bound to fail and everything that everyone did (I like the philosophy--smirk) will be better. The author of the article works for Siennax.

You have to subscribe to this mag and create an account to read the article, that says enough of the "openness" of such rants! What I find disturbing is such articles make way into corporations. I had this article lying in my post. (We subscribe to this magazine and a lot of biased views are published to push their own software/services. This guy did the same, couldn't resist , I guess). Backroom scuttlebutt thus...

Here's an excerpt in Dutch

Wanneer je de business case van VmWare eens wat beter bekijkt wordt duidelijk dat VmWare de strijd gaat verliezen.VmWare gebruikt techniek die als voordeel heeft dat de onderliggende hardware transparant wordt, zodat meerdere besturingssystemen, ongemodificeerd, en door elkaar op met VmWare uitgeruste systemen kunnen draaien. Nadeel van deze techniek is een stevige impact op de I/O performance, die bij I/O intensieve applicaties kan oplopen tot tientallen procenten. In de praktijk betekent dit dat het onverstandig is om een gemiddelde ESX server met meer dan 3 partities uit te rusten. VmWare doet om overduidelijke redenen mistig over die performance, pikant detail is dat VmWare het publiceren van benchmarks verbiedt.
VmWare levert 2 virtualisatieproducten: het (inmiddels) gratis verkrijgbare VmWare GSX en VmWare ESX. Alleen de ESX versie, waarvoor ongeveer 2500 euro per fysieke server moet worden neergeteld plus een forse jaarlijkse support fee, is geschikt voor het virtualiseren van servers in een rekencentrum. Een fatsoenlijke server mag dan slechts enkele duizenden euro’s kosten, de beheerskosten van diezelfde server na plaatsing in een datacenter en voorzien van een OS zijn volgens Gartner gestegen tot minstens 10.000 euro per jaar, en de kosten per OS nemen met VmWare niet af. Een kleine rekensom leert dat er op basis van de extra licentie- en supportkosten nauwelijks voordeel te behalen valt.

My Translation

When you the look at the business case of VmWare it becomes clear that VmWare will lose the fight. VmWare uses technique that takes advantage of the underlying hardware transparency , allowing several operating systems, to run unmodified, across a VMware machine. Disadvantages of this technique is a heavy impact can run on the I/O performance, that by I/O intensive applications to raise enormously (to tens of hundreds of a percent). In the practice it would mean you can berely run no more than 3 partitions on a ESX Server. VmWare also prohibits the publishing of benchmarks for obvious reasons foggy over that performance. VmWare furnishes 2 virtualization products: the (meanwhile) available free of charge VmWare GSX and VmWare ESX. Only the ESX version, for which approximately 2500 Euros per physical serve must be added plus a robust annual support plan, is arranged for the virtualization of servers in a data center. A decent then only single thousand Euros expenses, the management expense of the very same may serve after placement in a datacenter and foresee of an OS are according to Gartner risen till at least 10,000 Euros per year, and the expenses per OS do not take with VmWare off. A small calculation tells us that that there on basis of the extra licenses and support barely work in your favor.

And then he goes about concluding...

Al met al behoorlijk sneu voor VmWare. Net nu er een echte markt voor ESX lijkt te komen, ondergraven hardware leveranciers en partijen als XenSource de voorheen unieke features van VmWare en brengen betere en eenvoudigere producten op de markt tegen veel lagere kosten. Pech voor VmWare, maar that’s life...

Translated...

It is really sad for VMware. Just as the real market for ESX was about to be capitalized, the hardware suppliers and companies like XenSource are beginning to undermine the unique qualities of VMware with better and simpler products and that too a very low prices. Bad luck for VMware, but that's life...

Huh!? That's life? Life is gooood for the VMware folks! (

VMware pulled in a whopping $157m during the second quarter on the back of 73 per cent year-over-year growth. We're talking about a $630m a year company with no signs of slowing down. VMware is looking a lot like the Microsoft of x86 server virtualization.

) -- From "The Register".

Sure MS, Redhat, SuSe, IBM, and anybody on this planet would want to get a piece of this estimated 20 billion dollar market. But how the things are going to change in and around VMware is something no one can guess. All I know for sure is that these guys are writing a pretty darn good software.

OK so I'd like to point out a few things on this rant and self-promtion (of their/writers own partnership with Xen 3.0)

Check out several clients in Europe yourself, who run ESX in their production and yes I/O intensive applications as well! Go talk to them!
Have you really seen a client who be stupid enough to spend his money while not knowing anything about what his savings are?
Do you think a client is retarded that he'll go with XenSource or any other solution when not having any knowledge of its performance in his datacenter? Sure it's cheap. Virtual Server is cheap too (free I mean).
You have no idea what VMware is working on its ESX 4.x product and strategies, but you are willing to write it off the board. End of VMware? C'mon!!! This would be an insult to all the clients who are adopting VMware's datacenter products in their server environment as we speak!

And by the way its VMware not VmWare! I'm sorry but I have just completed a project in which I had full knowledge of every application running in the datacenter. What it did, all kinds of tiers, 2 tier, 3 tier. We did a TCO and ROIC. We took every detail out of the server environment. Yes, you are right when you say that virtualization will become a standard technology in the future but the choice and decision of companies to go and choose for data centers and adopt which ever model they want, is entirely up to them. VMware can be used as a tool to enhance

productivity
software provisioning
educated and elevated skill sets
development,test, staging
etc

BUT please don't start picking up a date in the future and say "Umm, by 2015 you would have lost on your investments, because the base technology platform of virtualization will suck you dry". I think its unfair to scare clients and community by making claims to push your own cause. Fortunately (like I've said before) the consumer is not ignorant , they go out a do a thorugh investigation.

I don't have a problem with people coming up with their views and opinions and sure things need to be benchmarked and all that. SWsoft guys are very proud owners to start "talking about some benchmark metrics".

Anyways if all that were true I'd like to have one question answered. OK lets do a poll here then...

OK so this is a even more direct question in your face! All the rant on the press, fighting for space. It's time that the customers and the future customers get to see and say what it's all about. Not market space but a place in your data center.

You are serious about virtualization, what would you go for?

PS: You may have also noticed that you can't fake the poll by trying to poll multiple times. I even tested it from different PC's and it didn't allow me. So I guess we have an honest poll running here. Thanks for polling and your time.

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