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At-a-Glance: Comparing VMware vSphere 5.5 & Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V

Granular technical comparison reveals interesting pros and cons in hypervisor platforms
By Keith Mayer
Article Rating:
October 1, 2013 11:00 AM EDT
Reads:
 18,884

There’s been lots of buzz on the virtualization front over the past month …  In August, Microsoft announced the RTM version of Windows Server 2012 R2 and System Center 2012 R2, the latest major releases of the Windows Server and System Center families.  In addition, at VMworld this year, VMware announced the latest edition of their vSphere hypervisor platform: VMware vSphere 5.5.

IT Pros have been very interested in learning about the pros and cons presented by each offering – particularly because the total cost of Windows Server 2012 R2 + System Center 2012 R2 can be quite attractive in comparison to VMware’s offerings.

  • More information: See Shopping for Private Clouds for a sample cost comparison between Microsoft and VMware virtualization solutions based on real-world requirements.

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With so many features called by differing names in each virtualization platform, comparing Microsoft and VMware virtualization solutions can sometimes seem a bit like comparing apples and oranges.  But, I’ll try to boil things down to a real-world perspective based on my experience implementing both solutions in the field throughout my career.  In this article, I’ll provide a summarized comparison of the feature sets provided by each of these latest releases using the currently available public information from both Microsoft and VMware as of this article’s publication date.

How to compare?
Rather than simply comparing feature-by-feature using just simple check-marks in each category, I’ll try to provide as much detail as possible for you to intelligently compare each area.  As I’m sure you’ve heard before, sometimes the “devil is in the details”. Winking smile

For each comparison area, I’ll rate the related capabilities with the following color coded rankings:

  • Supported – Fully supported without any additional products or licenses
  • Limited Support – Significant limitations when using related feature, or limitations in comparison to the competing solution represented
  • Not Supported – Not supported at all or without the addition of other product licensing costs

In this article, I’ve organized the comparison into the following sections:

  • Licensing
  • Virtualization Scalability
  • VM Portability, High Availability and Disaster Recovery
  • Storage
  • Networking
  • Guest Operating Systems

Are you keeping score at home?
Of course, not all of the features and capabilities presented in the summary below may be important to you.  As you review the comparison summary of each section, just make a note of the particular features that you're likely to use in your environment.  When you're done, tally up the Green ratings in each column to determine which platform achieves a better score in meeting the needs of your organization.

Here we go…

Licensing: At-A-Glance

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
# of Physical CPUs per License 2 1 With Microsoft, each Datacenter Edition license provides licensing for up to 2 physical CPUs per Host.  Additional licenses can be “stacked” if more than 2 physical CPUs are present.

With VMware, a vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus license must be purchased for each physical CPU.  This difference in CPU licensing is one of the factors that can contribute to increased licensing costs.  In addition, a minimum of one license of vCenter Server 5.5 is required for vSphere deployments.
# of Managed OSE’s per License Unlimited Unlimited Both solutions provide the ability to manage an unlimited number of Operating System Environments per licensed Host.
# of Windows Server VM Licenses per Host Unlimited 0 With VMware, Windows Server VM licenses must still be purchased separately. In environments virtualizing Windows Server workloads, this can contribute to a higher overall cost when virtualizing with VMware.

VMware does include licenses for an unlimited # of VMs running SUSE Linux Enterprise Server per Host.
Includes Anti-virus / Anti-malware protection Yes - System Center Endpoint Protection agents included for both Host and VMs with System Center 2012 R2 Yes - Includes vShield Endpoint Protection which deploys as EPSEC thin agent in each VM + separate virtual appliance.
Includes full SQL Database Server licenses for management databases Yes – Includes all needed database server licensing to manage up to 1,000 hosts and 25,000 VMs per management server. No – Must purchase additional database server licenses to scale beyond managing 100 hosts and 3,000 VMs with vCenter Server Appliance. VMware licensing includes an internal vPostgres database that supports managing up to 100 hosts and 3,000 VMs via vCenter Server Appliance. See VMware vSphere 5.5 Configuration Maximums for details.
Includes licensing for Operations Monitoring and Management. Yes – Included in System Center 2012 R2 No – Operations Monitoring and Management requires separate license for vCenter Operations Manager or upgrade to vSphere with Operations Management
Includes licensing for Private Cloud Management capabilities – pooled resources, self-service, delegation, automation, elasticity, chargeback/showback Yes – Included in System Center 2012 R2 No – Private Cloud Management capabilities require additional cost of VMware vCloud Suite.

Virtualization Scalability: At-a-Glance

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
Maximum # of Logical Processors per Host 320 320 With vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus, VMware has “caught up” to Microsoft in terms of Maximum # of Logical Processors supported per Host.
Maximum Physical RAM per Host 4TB 4TB With vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus, VMware has “caught up” to Microsoft in terms of Maximum Physical RAM supported per Host.
Maximum Active VMs per Host 1,024 512
Maximum Virtual CPUs per VM 64 64 When using VMware FT, only 1 Virtual CPU per VM can be used.
Hot-Adjust Virtual CPU Resources to VM Yes - Hyper-V provides the ability to increase and decrease Virtual Machine limits for processor resources on running VMs. Yes - Can Hot-Add virtual CPUs for running VMs on selected Guest Operating Systems and adjust Limits/Shares for CPU resources. VMware Hot-Add CPU feature requires supported Guest Operating System. Check VMware Compatibility Guide for details.

VMware Hot-Add CPU feature not supported when using VMware FT
Maximum Virtual RAM per VM 1TB 1TB When using VMware FT, only 64GB of Virtual RAM per VM can be used.
Hot-Add Virtual RAM to VM Yes ( Dynamic Memory ) Yes Requires supported Guest Operating System.
Dynamic Memory Management Yes ( Dynamic Memory ) Yes ( Memory Ballooning ) Note that memory overcommit is not supported for VMs that are configured as an MSCS VM Guest Cluster. VMware vSphere 5.5 also supports another memory technique: Transparent Page Sharing (TPS).  While TPS was useful in the past on legacy server hardware platforms and operating systems, it is no longer effective in many environments due to modern servers and operating systems supporting Large Memory Pages (LMP) for improved memory performance.
Guest NUMA Support Yes Yes NUMA = Non-Uniform Memory Access.  Guest NUMA support is particularly important for scalability when virtualizing large multi-vCPU VMs on Hosts with a large number of physical processors.
Maximum # of physical Hosts per Cluster 64 32
Maximum # of VMs per Cluster 8,000 4,000
Virtual Machine Snapshots Yes - Up to 50 snapshots per VM are supported. Yes - Up to 32 snapshots per VM chain are supported, but VMware only recommends 2-to-3.

In addition, VM Snapshots are not supported for VMs using an iSCSI initiator.
Integrated Application Load Balancing for Scaling-Out Application Tiers Yes - via System Center 2012 R2 VMM No – Requires additional purchase of vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) or vCloud Suite.
Bare metal deployment of new Hypervisor hosts and clusters Yes - via System Center 2012 R2 VMM Yes - VMware Auto Deploy and Host Profiles supports bare metal deployment of new hosts into an existing cluster, but does not support bare metal deployment of new clusters.
Bare metal deployment of new Storage hosts and clusters Yes - via System Center 2012 R2 VMM No
GPU Virtualization for Advanced VDI Graphics Yes - Server GPUs can be virtualized and shared across VDI VMs via RemoteFX. Yes - via virtual GPU support.
Virtualization of USB devices Yes - Client USB devices can be passed to VMs via Remote Desktop connections. Direct  redirection of USB storage from Host possible with Windows-to-Go certified devices.  Direct redirection of other USB devices possible with third-party solutions. Yes - via USB Pass-through support.

VM Portability, High Availability and Disaster Recovery: At-a-Glance

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
Live Migration of running VMs Yes – Unlimited concurrent Live VM Migrations.  Provides flexibility to cap at a maximum limit that is appropriate for your datacenter architecture. Yes – but limited to 4 concurrent vMotions per host when using 1GbE network adapters and 8 concurrent vMotions per host when using 10GbE network adapters.
Live Migration of running VMs without shared storage between hosts Yes – Supported via Shared Nothing Live Migration Yes – Supported via Enhanced vMotion.
Live Migration using compression of VM memory state Yes – Supported via Compressed Live Migration, providing up to a 2X increase in Live Migration speeds. No
Live Migration over RDMA-enabled network adapters Yes – Supported via SMB-Direct Live Migration, providing up to a 10X increase in Live Migration speeds. No
Live Migration of VMs Clustered with Windows Server Failover Clustering (MSCS Guest Cluster) Yes – by configuring relaxed monitoring of MSCS VM Guest Clusters. No – based on documented vSphere MSCS Setup Limitations
Highly Available VMs Yes – Highly available VMs can be configured on a Hyper-V Host cluster.  If the application running inside the VM is cluster aware, a VM Guest Cluster can also be configured via MSCS for faster application failover times. Yes – Supported by VMware HA, but with the limitations listed above when using MSCS VM Guest Clusters.
Failover Prioritization of Highly Available VMs Yes – Supported by clustered priority settings on each highly available VM. Yes
Affinity Rules for Highly Available VMs Yes – Supported by preferred cluster resource owners and anti-affinity VM placement rules. Yes
Cluster-Aware Updating for Orchestrated Patch Management of Hosts. Yes – Supported via included Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU) role service. Yes – Supported by vSphere 5.5 Update Manager, but if using vCenter Server Appliance, need separate 64-bit Windows OS license for Update Management server.  If supporting more than 5 hosts and 50 VMs, also need a separate SQL database server.
Guest OS Application Monitoring for Highly Available VMs Yes Yes – Provided by vSphere App HA, but limited to only the following applications: Apache Tomcat, IIS, SQL Server, Apache HTTP Server, SharePoint, SpringSource tc Runtime.
VM Guest Clustering via Shared Virtual Hard Disk files Yes – Provided via native Shared VHDX support for VM Guest Clusters Yes – But only Single-Host VM Guest Clustering supported via Shared VMDK files.  For VM Guest Clusters that extend across multiple hosts, must use RDM instead.
Intelligent Placement of new VM workloads Yes – Provided via Intelligent Placement in System Center 2012 R2 Yes – Provided via vSphere DRS, but without ability to intelligently place fault tolerant VMs using VMware FT.
Automated Load Balancing of VM Workloads across Hosts Yes – Provided via Dynamic Optimization in System Center 2012 R2 Yes - Provided via vSphere DRS, but without ability to load-balance VM Guest Clusters using MSCS.
Power Optimization of Hosts when load-balancing VMs Yes – Provided via Power Optimization in System Center 2012 R2 Yes – Provided via vSphere DRS, with the same limitations listed above for Automated Load Balancing.
Fault Tolerant VMs No - The vast majority of application availability needs can be supported via Highly Available VMs and VM Guest Clustering on a more cost-effective and more-flexible basis than software-based fault tolerance solutions.  If required for specific business applications, hardware-based fault tolerance server solutions can be leveraged where needed. Yes – Supported via VMware FT, but there are a large number of limitations when using VMware FT, including no support for the following when using VMware FT: VM Snapshots, Storage vMotion, VM Backups via vSphere Data Protection, Virtual SAN, Multi-vCPU VMs, More than 64GB of vRAM per VM. Software-based fault tolerance solutions, such as VMware FT, generally have significant limitations.  If applications require more comprehensive fault tolerance than provided via Highly Available VMs and VM Guest Clustering, hardware-based fault tolerance server solutions offer an alternative choice without the limits imposed by software-based fault tolerance solutions.
Backup VMs and Applicatons Yes - Provided via included System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager with support for Disk-to-Disk, Tape and Cloud backups. Yes - Only supports Disk-to-Disk backup of VMs via vSphere Data Protection.  Application-level backup integration requires separately purchased vSphere Data Protection Advanced.
Site-to-Site Asynchronous VM Replication Yes – Provided via Hyper-V Replica with 30-second, 5-minute or 15-minute replication intervals. Minimum RPO = 30-seconds.

Hyper-V Replica also supports extended replication across three sites for added protection.		 Yes – Provided via vSphere Replication with minimum replication interval of 15-minutes. Minimum RPO = 15-minutes. In VMware solution, Orchestrated Failover of Site-to-Site replication can be provided via separately licensed VMware SRM.

In Microsoft solution, Orchestrated Failover of Site-to-Site replication can be provided via included PowerShell at no additional cost. Alternatively, a GUI interface for orchestrating failover can be provided via the separately licensed Windows Azure HRM service.

Storage: At-a-Glance

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
Maximum # Virtual SCSI Hard Disks per VM 256 ( Virtual SCSI ) 60 ( PVSCSI ) 
120 ( Virtual SATA )
Maximum Size per Virtual Hard Disk 64TB 62TB vSphere 5.5 support for 62TB VMDK files is limited to when using VMFS5 and NFS datastores only. 

In vSphere 5.5, VMFS3 datastores are still limited to 2TB VMDK files. 

In vSphere 5.5, Hot-Expand, VMware FT , Virtual Flash Read Cache and Virtual SAN are not supported with 62TB VMDK files.
Boot VM from Virtual SCSI disks Yes ( Generation 2 VMs ) Yes
Hot-Add Virtual SCSI VM Storage for running VMs Yes Yes
Hot-Expand Virtual SCSI Hard Disks for running VMs Yes Yes – but not supported with new 62TB VMDK files.
Hot-Shrink Virtual SCSI Hard Disks for running VMs Yes No
Storage Quality of Service Yes ( Storage QoS ) Yes ( Storage IO Control ) In VMware vSphere 5.5, Storage IO Control is not supported for RDM disks.

In Windows Server 2012 R2, Storage QoS is not supported for Pass-through disks.
Virtual Fibre Channel to VMs Yes ( 4 Virtual FC ports per VM ) Yes ( 4 Virtual FC ports per VM ) vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus also includes a software initiator for FCoE support for VMs. 

While not included inbox in Windows Server 2012 R2, a no-cost ISV solution is available here to provide FCoE support for Hyper-V VMs.
Live Migrate Virtual Storage for running VMs Yes - Unlimited concurrent Live Storage migrations. Provides flexibility to cap at a maximum limit that is appropriate for your datacenter architecture. Yes – but only up to 2 concurrent Storage vMotion operations per host / only up to 8 concurrent Storage vMotion operations per datastore.  Storage vMotion is also not supported for MSCS VM Guest Clusters.
Flash-based Read Cache Yes - Using SSDs in Tiered Storage Spaces, limited up to 160 physical disks and 480 TB total capacity. Yes – but only up to 400GB of cache per virtual disk / 2TB cumulative cache per host for all virtual disks.
Flash-based Write-back Cache Yes - Using SSDs in Storage Spaces for Write-back Cache. No
SAN-like Storage Virtualization using commodity hard disks. Yes – Included in Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces. No VMware provides Virtual SAN which is included as an experimental feature in vSphere 5.5.  You can test and experiment with Virtual SAN, but VMware does not expect it to be used in a production environment.
Automated Tiered Storage between SSD and HDD using commodity hard disks. Yes – Included in Windows Server 2012 R2 Storage Spaces. No VMware provides Virtual SAN which is included as an experimental feature in vSphere 5.5.  You can test and experiment with Virtual SAN, but VMware does not expect it to be used in a production environment.
Can consume storage via iSCSI, NFS, Fibre Channel and SMB 3.0. Yes Yes – Except no support for SMB 3.0.
Can present storage via iSCSI, NFS and SMB 3.0. Yes – Available via included iSCSI Target Server, NFS Server and Scale-out SMB 3.0 Server support.  All roles can be clustered for High Availability. No VMware provides vSphere Storage Appliance as a separately licensed product to deliver the ability to present NFS storage.
Storage Multipathing Yes – via MPIO and SMB Multichannel Yes – via VAMP
SAN Offload Capability Yes – via ODX Yes – via VAAI
Thin Provisioning and Trim Storage Yes – Available via Storage Spaces Thin Provisioning and NTFS Trim Notifications. Yes – but trim operations must be manually processed by running esxcli vmfs unmap command to reclaim disk space.
Storage Encryption Yes – via BitLocker No
Deduplication of storage used by running VMs Yes – Available via included Data Deduplication role service. No
Provision VM Storage based on Storage Classifications Yes – via Storage Classifications in System Center 2012 R2 Yes – via Storage Policies, formerly called Storage Profiles, in vCenter Server 5.5
Dynamically balance and re-balance storage load based on demands Yes – Storage IO load balancing and re-balancing is automatically handled on-demand by both SMB 3.0 Scale Out File Server and Automated Storage Tiers in Storage Spaces. Yes – Performed via Storage DRS, but limited in load-balancing frequency.  The default DRS load-balance interval only runs at 8-hour intervals and can be adjusted to run load-balancing only as often as every 1-hour.
Integrated Provisioning and Management of Shared Storage Yes - System Center 2012 R2 VMM includes storage provisioning and management of SAN Zoning, LUNS and Clustered Storage Servers. No

Networking: At-a-Glance

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
Distributed Switches across Hosts Yes – Supported by Logical Switches in System Center 2012 R2 Yes
Extensible Virtual Switches Yes - Several partners offer extensions today, such as Cisco, NEC, Inmon and 5nine. Windows Server 2012 R2 offers new support for co-existence of Network Virtualization and Switch Extensions. Replaceable, not extensible - VMware virtual switch is replaceable, not incrementally extensible with multiple 3rd party solutions concurrently
NIC Teaming Yes – Up to 32 NICs per NIC Team.  Windows Server 2012 R2 provides new Dynamic Load Balancing mode using flowlets to provide efficient load balancing even between a small number of hosts. Yes – Up to 32 NICs per Link Aggregation Group
Private VLANs (PVLAN) Yes Yes
ARP Spoofing Protection Yes No – Requires additional purchase of vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) or vCloud Suite.
DHCP Snooping Protection Yes No – Requires additional purchase of vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) or vCloud Suite.
Router Advertisement Guard Protection Yes No – Requires additional purchase of vCloud Network and Security (vCNS) or vCloud Suite.
Virtual Port ACLs Yes - Windows Server 2012 R2 adds support for Extended ACLs that include Protocol, Src/Dst Ports, State, Timeout & Isolation ID Yes - via new Traffic Filtering and Marking policies in vSphere 5.5 distributed switches
Trunk Mode to VMs Yes Yes
Port Monitoring Yes Yes
Port Mirroring Yes Yes
Dynamic Virtual Machine Queue Yes Yes
IPsec Task Offload Yes No
Single Root IO Virtualization (SR-IOV) Yes Yes – SR-IOV is supported by vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus, but without support for vMotion, Highly Available VMs or VMware FT when using SR-IOV.
Virtual Receive Side Scaling ( Virtual RSS ) Yes Yes ( VMXNet3 )
Network Quality of Service Yes Yes
Network Virtualization Yes – Provided via Hyper-V Network Virtualization based on NVGRE protocol and in-box Site-to-Site NVGRE Gateway. No – Requires additional purchase of VMware NSX
Integrated Network Management of both Virtual and Physical Network components Yes – System Center 2012 R2 VMM supports integrated management of virtual networks, Top-of-Rack (ToR) switches and integrated IP Address Management No

Guest Operating Systems: At-a-Glance

For this section, I’m defining Supported Guest Operating Systems as operating systems that are supported by both the virtualization platform vendor and by the operating system vendor.  Below, I’ve listed the latest common versions of major Windows and Linux operating systems that I've seen used in business environments of all sizes over the years, including SMB, Enterprise and hosting partner organizations.  I've included the support status for each operating system along with relevant notes where helpful.

If you’re looking for the full list of Guest Operating Systems supported by each platform, you can find the full details at the following locations:

Microsoft
Windows Server 2012 R2 
+ System Center 2012 R2 Datacenter Editions		 VMware
vSphere 5.5 Enterprise Plus + vCenter Server 5.5		 Notes
Windows Server 2012 R2 Yes Yes
Windows 8.1 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2012 Yes Yes
Windows 8 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 R2 Yes Yes
Windows 7 with SP1 Yes Yes
Windows 7 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2008 SP2 Yes Yes
Windows Home Server 2011 Yes No
Windows Small Business Server 2011 Yes No
Windows Vista with SP2 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2 Yes Yes
Windows Server 2003 SP2 Yes Yes
Windows XP with SP3 Yes Yes
Windows XP x64 with SP2 Yes Yes
CentOS 5.7, 5.8, 6.0 – 6.4 Yes Yes
CentOS Desktop 5.7, 5.8, 6.0 – 6.4 Yes Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.7, 5.8, 6.0 – 6.4 Yes Yes
Red Hat Enterprise Linux Desktop 5.7, 5.8, 6.0 – 6.4 Yes Yes
SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 11 SP2 & SP3 Yes Yes
SUS Linux Enterprise Desktop 11 SP2 & SP3 Yes Yes
OpenSUSE 12.1 Yes Yes
Ubuntu 12.04, 12.10, 13.10 Yes Yes – Currently 13.04 in the 13.x distros
Ubuntu Desktop 12.04, 12.10, 13.10 Yes Yes – Currently 13.04 in the 13.x distros
Oracle Linux 6.4 Yes – Oracle has certified its supported products to run on Hyper-V and Windows Azure Yes – However, per this Oracle article, Oracle has not certified any of its products to run on VMware. Oracle will only provide support for issues that are either known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware.
Mac OS X 10.7.x & 10.8.x No Yes - However, see note to the right.  Based on current Apple EULA, this configuration may not be legally permitted in your environment. Note that according to the Apple EULA for Mac OS X, it is not permitted to install Mac OS X on any platform that is not Apple-branded hardware. If you choose to virtualize Mac OS X on non-Apple hardware platforms, it's my understanding that you're violating the terms of the Apple EULA.
Sun Solaris 10 No Yes – However, per this Oracle article, Oracle has not certified any of its products to run on VMware. Oracle will only provide support for issues that are either known to occur on the native OS, or can be demonstrated not to be as a result of running on VMware.

In terms of Guest Operating System choices ... It’s somewhat of a draw in this area, as the best choice for you really depends upon which Guest Operating Systems you are actually using in your environment.

If you are primarily using the latest past few versions of common Windows and Linux operating systems in your shop, either platform probably nicely supports your required mix of Guest Operating Systems.  However, if you’re still using older legacy versions or specialized versions of some operating systems, you may need to more closely review the full compatibility lists for each platform using the links provided above.  When evaluating Guest Operating System support for virtualization platforms, remember to also check with the Operating System vendor to ensure that the OS in question also meets their support and licensing policies.

Managing Heterogeneous Hypervisor Environments

In certain scenarios, you may find that a mix of virtualization platforms is needed to cost-effectively support all the features and Guest Operating Systems for which you’re looking, in which case you’ll be pleased to find that Microsoft System Center 2012 R2 also supports Private Cloud management across heterogeneous hypervisors, including Hyper-V, VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer.  For more details on managing VMware vSphere and Citrix XenServer hypervisors with Microsoft System Center 2012 R2, be sure to check out the following articles:

In Summary …

As you can see, both Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 / System Center 2012 R2 and VMware vSphere 5.5 offer lots of enterprise-grade virtualization features.  Hopefully this comparison was useful to you in more granularly evaluating each platform for your environment.

  • Which virtualization platform scored higher for your needs?

    Please share your results in the comments section below!
  • Are there additional features that I missed in the list above?

    Feel free to leave your comments below with the virtualization and Private Cloud features that you’d like to see added to this comparison.
  • Do you have additional specific details to add or specific corrections to suggest?

    Feel free to leave your suggestions below as well with a link to validate the information that you’d like to see added or updated.

Additional resources you may also be interested in …

Published October 1, 2013 – Reads 18,884
Copyright © 2013 SYS-CON Media, Inc. — All Rights Reserved.
Syndicated stories and blog feeds, all rights reserved by the author.

More Stories By Keith Mayer

Keith Mayer is a Technical Evangelist at Microsoft focused on Windows Infrastructure, Data Center Virtualization, Systems Management and Private Cloud. Keith has over 17 years of experience as a technical leader of complex IT projects, in diverse roles, such as Network Engineer, IT Manager, Technical Instructor and Consultant. He has consulted and trained thousands of IT professionals worldwide on the design and implementation of enterprise technology solutions.

Keith is currently certified on several Microsoft technologies, including System Center, Hyper-V, Windows, Windows Server, SharePoint and Exchange. He also holds other industry certifications from IBM, Cisco, Citrix, HP, CheckPoint, CompTIA and Interwoven.

Keith is the author of the IT Pros ROCK! Blog on Microsoft TechNet, voted as one of the Top 50 "Must Read" IT Blogs.

Keith also manages the Windows Server 2012 "Early Experts" Challenge - a FREE online study group for IT Pros interested in studying and preparing for certification on Windows Server 2012. Join us and become the next "Early Expert"!

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By Pat Romanski
The IoT is changing the way enterprises conduct business. In his session at @ThingsExpo, Eric Hoffman, Vice President at EastBanc Technologies, will discuss the significant expected growth of connected devices, what that means for businesses, and how to optimize IoT-enabled commerce that will soon disrupt industries. He will provide several examples; one including a Washington, D.C.-based sports club, and how it leveraged IoT and the cloud to develop a comprehensive booking and automated sys...
Mar. 23, 2016 01:43 PM EDT  Reads: 294
By Elizabeth White
SYS-CON Events announced today BZ Media LLC has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 19th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA. BZ Media LLC is a high-tech media company that produces technical conferences and expositions, and publishes a magazine, newsletters and websites in the software development, SharePoint, mobile development and Commercial Drone markets.
Mar. 20, 2016 02:00 PM EDT  Reads: 1,303
By Scott Allen
*This is part of a series of blogs examining Sensor-2-Server (S2S) communications, development, security and implementation. For the past two weeks, we’ve taken an in-depth look at what Sensor-2-Server communications are, how to implement these systems, and some of the specific aspects of communication that these systems facilitate. This week, for our final installment, we’ll examine some of the benefits, as well as security considerations, for S2S communications.
Mar. 19, 2016 11:45 PM EDT  Reads: 1,190
By Elizabeth White
As devices, sensors, objects and people are given digital identities that connect them to the Internet by the billions, the need for security and privacy becomes a critical factor for both market adoption and safety. The 40-year-old security methods we now use on our PCs and networks cannot address many of these IoT devices.
Mar. 19, 2016 04:00 PM EDT  Reads: 1,122
By Elizabeth White
Two-thirds of organizations implementing hybrid cloud report they’re already gaining competitive advantage from their hybrid environments and are nearly three times as likely to use it to assemble data assets or monetize data, according to findings released by IBM (NYSE: IBM). With a hybrid cloud approach, organizations can be selective about when to use cloud and when to use traditional IT infrastructure – delivering the best functionality while meeting speed and flexibility needs, as well a...
Mar. 19, 2016 01:00 PM EDT  Reads: 1,054
By Elizabeth White
Internet of Things (IoT) platforms have evolved. Advances in technology make it possible for facilities to become more data-driven by connecting to energy assets, thereby improving building resiliency and reducing energy costs. By creating an Energy Network of Things, facilities can manage energy assets in real-time, institute system-wide operational oversight and compliance, execute energy efficiency programs, utilize real-time data, and support budgeting and asset planning across local and geo...
Mar. 19, 2016 01:00 PM EDT  Reads: 1,089
By Elizabeth White
SYS-CON Events announced today CrowdReviews.com has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 18th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7–9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY. CrowdReviews.com is the first buyer’s guide that ranks products and services based on client reviews.
Mar. 19, 2016 11:00 AM EDT  Reads: 1,317
By Elizabeth White
For basic one-to-one voice or video calling solutions, WebRTC has proven to be a very powerful technology. Although WebRTC’s core functionality is to provide secure, real-time p2p media streaming, leveraging native platform features and server-side components brings up new communication capabilities for web and native mobile applications, allowing for advanced multi-user use cases such as video broadcasting, conferencing, and media recording.
Mar. 18, 2016 10:15 PM EDT  Reads: 818
By Liz McMillan
SYS-CON Events announced today Object Management Group® has been named “Media Sponsor” of SYS-CON's 18th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7–9, 2016, at the Javits Center in New York City, NY, and the 19th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on November 1–3, 2016, at the Santa Clara Convention Center in Santa Clara, CA.
Mar. 18, 2016 12:00 PM EDT  Reads: 1,111
By Liz McMillan
SYS-CON Events announced today that Pythian, a global IT services company specializing in helping companies adopt disruptive technologies to optimize revenue-generating systems, has been named "Bronze Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 18th Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 7-9, 2015 at the Javits Center in New York, New York. Pythian, a 400-person global IT services company that helps companies compete by adopting disruptive technologies, announced today that CEO Paul Vallée has been named “Diversi...
Mar. 18, 2016 11:00 AM EDT  Reads: 1,087
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