Microsoft drives virtualization into uncharted waters: Chases VMware with a boatload of promises

Microsoft Corp. is gunning for a big piece of the virtualization pie and they're sticking to a tried and true, three-pronged strategy: first, take the fast follower approach; second, start giving stuff away; and third, make a lot of promises.Virtualization evolved out of long-held capabilities in mainframe environments, not exactly Microsoft's playground. It's no surprise, then, that they didn't break the ground in this area and are now in catch-up mode. But the question remains: if it worked against Apple on the PC OS/GUI front, and Netscape during the browser wars, will it hold for virtualization and VMware?Maybe, but it's going to be a slog. Early in 2007 VMware lambasted Microsoft with multiple complaints. The gist of the attack was that Microsoft was up to its old tricks, pushing a closed ecosystem of language restrictions for virtual hard drive (VHD) formatted virtual machines (VMs), licensing straightjackets, limited Vista capabilities, and proprietary APIs. Recently, however, things have opened up considerably on the language and API front. Analysts aren't raising red flags on licensing issues either, and virtualization is only out of bounds for Vista Home Edition. As well, some analysts like the fact that Microsoft is taking virtualization to the operating system, suggesting that VMware's recent hardware announcements with the likes of AMD, Intel, and Dell aren't the sea changes they've been made out to be."This is different from bare metal server virtualization," says Andi Mann, research director at Enterprise Management Associates (EMA). "Putting the hypervisor at the OS really does make sense - this is the way it's been in old UNIX mainframes, the AS/400s, where virtualization was a core component of an operating system."Another view, held by John Sloan, senior research analyst with Info-Tech Research Group, is that VMware will be tough to beat."The fact of the matter is that VMware ESX Server is being used in consolidated data center projects, in production environments. There is a base of experience there, and still a lot of room to grow."Right now Microsoft is pushing server, application, desktop, and presentation virtualization. This is provided within the context of a suite of products, starting with Virtual Server 2005 R2, the System Center Virtual Machine Manager (supported by Operation Manager 2007, Configuration Manager, and Data Protection Manager), as well as SoftGrid Application Virtualization, Virtual PC, and Terminal Services.Microsoft's present capabilities were recently promoted at a roundtable in Toronto, attended by Ken Sutcliffe, director of IT services for the Ontario Association of Community Care Access Centres (OACCAC). In a follow-up interview with Telemanagement Sutcliffe offered real-life examples of the benefits."A community care access centre (CCAC) might typically have had six to ten servers. These were running line of business (LOB) applications, but underutilized. Now in a typical environment there are three servers, a disk, and an Internet SCSI (iSCSI) target. We can put an enterprise licence on the host operating system, then add on to the guest operating systems, and don't need to buy more hardware."The story that Microsoft is trying to get out there, then, is that it's got virtualization covered. Although the "roadmap" is to a place that doesn't yet exist, Microsoft is subtly pushing a message that has worked in the past. It goes something like this: virtualization is a function that can be commoditized and integrated into the Microsoft family of products, and needn't live as a stand-alone brand. This is, in effect, the approach that proved so successful against Apple and Netscape.And, love or hate Microsoft, it might just work, which is incredible, given Microsoft's determination to confuse its customers. The unfortunately-named "Longhorn" is now Windows Server 2008, and "Viridian", the code name for Microsoft's hypervisor, will be named Windows Server Virtualization upon release. And why might this work? Because the OS-based commodity approach has appeal, and because Microsoft is putting a lot of weight behind this initiative. When Microsoft decides to follow fast, they don't follow for long."Over the long term they are looking to pull people off of VMware," says EMA's Mann, who believes strongly that Microsoft has learned its lesson and has no interest in creating a closed environment. The Microsoft strategy for virtualization includes Xen support for Linux and Solaris which, if combined with VMware compatibility, would make for a comprehensive offering."VMware doesn't understand that virtualization is a commodity, and that's what threatens their success in the long run," says Mann. "The battles will be up the stack. Vendors will differentiate themselves based on their ability to speak to management capabilities, deployment, virtual machine movement, as well as issues such as security, patching, and virtual machine monitoring. These will be the areas of significant differentiation."He'll get no argument from Info-Tech's Sloan on that front. "The management layer is always the differentiator with virtualization," he says. "To divide up a server and run multiple machines, that's just table stakes - you'll be able to do that one way or another. What really makes a difference is what you do with that."In this regard trying to build things around System Center is the right thing to do. It's a good strategy, because investments in the management layer are likely to pay off for customers. But will this then complicate things on the security front?Mann, like many other analysts, thinks that the security issues surrounding virtualization have been overblown. There are two reasons for this: few problems have occurred, and some worst case scenarios (such as the "blue pill" phenomenon, in which malware code is undetectable in a virtual "matrix", as per the science fiction movie) have been discredited. However, don't be fooled: security is a very real issue in virtualized environments, and having Microsoft throwing code around is only going to complicate things.Blue Lane Technologies, which offers security products to VMware environments (a software-based shield for virtual servers, and an appliance for physical or virtual server infrastructure) thinks Microsoft will have a hard time pulling people off VMware accounts. "Most prudent CIOs will use VMware," says Allwyn Sequeira, senior VP of product operations at Blue Lane. "What's left is for the IBMs and HPs of this world to fight for data center control."Allwyn has nothing against working with Microsoft, but he is suspicious of how good Microsoft will be at opening up its APIs. It would be kind to say that, historically, this behaviour doesn't come naturally to the company."I want to see easy hooks into the hypervisor, and I want it to be vendor neutral," says Allwyn. "This can't be based on a Microsoft variant of the OS - it has to be black box. And I want to make sure that Microsoft has the feature sets. This is dramatically changing as we speak; VMware is on such a tear right now, they're adding features left and right." As mentioned above, Microsoft is trying to gain visibility and momentum with free offerings. It is offering a 120-day trial of System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2007, a self-extracting Virtual Hard Drive (VHD), Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 (32 or 64 bit), and Virtual PC 2007. Organizations - of which the OACCAC is an example - can also sign up for Windows Server 2008 release candidate evaluation.All that's left is an accounting of the promises. For that we should start with John Oxley, director, community evangelism, Microsoft. The most obvious part of Oxley's message is the promise that Microsoft is interested in playing with others:"We all know that there is no such thing as an homogenous environment," he says. "Everyone has a little bit of something; this explains our partnerships with Xen, Citrix, and recently Sun."The next message, echoing strongly the thinking in the analyst community, is that virtualization is a commodity that is only useful insofar as it supports business processes. To this end, Microsoft has been leaning heavily on customer in-put. Oxley sees virtualization as helping with mergers/acquisitions in multi-vendor environments, with standardized interfaces across technologies for messaging and compliance.Last up, always a stickler, is the release schedule."Our hypervisor is at beta for community technology preview from now to Q1 2008," says Oxley. "We will have it with Windows Server 2008, and within 180 days of the release we'll have the hypervisor and the management tools."The 180-day timeline has become something of a mantra. Despite the slam-dunk predictions from Microsoft, many think that there's still a chance things will be delayed. The most likely scenario is a shift past the February date, thus allowing Microsoft to keep its promise of having a hypervisor 180 days after the release of Windows Server 2008.The truth of the matter is that VMware is not going to be dislodged any time soon, and Microsoft is still at risk of a misstep, especially on the security front. However, Andy Papadopoulos, chief executive officer of Legend Corp., a systems integrator and Microsoft partner, is himself secure enough to sit at the table and promote Microsoft. It's a vote of confidence for how far Microsoft has travelled in such a short time. "Eighteen months ago," he says, "I would not have sat in this room with you or anyone else and touted Microsoft as a virtualization partner."

Microsoft drives virtualization into uncharted waters: Chases VMware with a boatload of promises

News | November 2, 2007

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