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."

Hyper-V hypervisor

[Thyrteen (1084963)]

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=0FE4E411-8C88-48C2-8903-3FD9CBB10D05 [microsoft.com] - wtf? and I thought I had trouble managing URLs at times. Those guys have gotta be sharp. :P

Re:

[Wiseman1024 (993899)]

Microsoft loves GUIDs. They look so enterprisey and scream of "stop looking, keep consuming".

Microsoft Windows

[andruk (1132557)]

now with N times more vulnerability per physical machine!

...and real brine shrimp (sorry, I couldn't resist)!

XKCD's aquarium !

[DrYak (748999)]

Cheap price for virtualised Vista ?
"Home Basic" and "Home premium" version authorised to run on virtual machines ?

XKCD [xkcd.com] now has all needed ingredients for his aquarium !

(to be soon followed IRL, just like the ball pit... )

Scary?

[ilovegeorgebush (923173)]

Well, I think there's something to worry about here. Bearing in mind Virtualization is the Next Big Thing ® right now, and businesses being quick on the up-take (I know my employer is a big fan, and we have ~5k employees and several large in-house development departments), I think it's going to be a bonus for a company to take a Virtualization offering from their primary OS supplier. Especially when you've got it in live deployments.

Is there room in the market for MS? Or will they squeeze VMWare out? We'll soon find out...

Re:Scary?

[mrpacmanjel (38218)]

Is there room in the market for MS? Or will they squeeze VMWare out? We'll soon find out...

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?).

Re:

[stevey (64018)]

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.

Agreed.

One of the benefits of virtualised Linux is that you can run minimal VMs for different purposes. Right now I have a desktop running about 8 Xen instances of Debian, in a mixture of Stable, Testing, and Unstable.

If you imagine running Microsoft Windows for testing you'd be interested in running XP, Vista, and Server

Re:

[Rogerborg (306625)]

Eek, does each virtual "core" need its own (per core) license?

Re:

[Philosinfinity (726949)]

Virtualized OS is only the first baby step. Virtualization becomes very cool when you see it done at the application layer. Read up on MS Application Virtualization which is a pretty bad ass application. It is essentially an AD integrated method of application deployment to the client without requiring installation. Think about running every version of Excel ever made simultaneously in its own virtual space. I have seen quite a few demos of this, and at the desktop architecture level, this is where vir

Microsoft and Xen will kill VMWare

[Psiren (6145)]

Microsoft will do what they always do, bring out something that is good enough for 95% of people, 95% of the time. They'll leave the finer points to third parties. It'll be good enough for most places running Windows only networks.

There appear to be several virtualisation platforms appearing on the Linux side. I haven't used Xen myself, as when we were moving to virtualisation it didn't have the capabilities or support that VMWare did.

Unless VMware gets its act together it's going to lose market share pretty quickly. The documentation is awful. Just. Fucking. Awful. There's tons of it to be sure, but it's contradictory, badly written, confusing and downright wrong in places.

Ultimately I think Microsoft's hypervisor will become the default for Windows, and one of the others for Linux. VMware will become a niche product.

Have the VMWare virtual appliances improved?

[Futurepower(R) (558542)]

"The [VMWare] documentation is awful. Just.... Awful. There's tons of it to be sure, but it's contradictory, badly written, confusing and downright wrong in places."

I haven't looked at them for a year, but in the past the VMWare Virtual Appliances [vmware.com] were more likely to hurt VMWare's reputation than help it, in my opinion.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

For now, VMWare has absolutely nothing to worry about. From hardcore linux users to the most Kool-aid drinking Microsoft users I know, everyone of them universally thinks VirtualPC is a flaming piece of shit. Microsoft has a long way to go to beat them. Also, VMWare's real strength is ESX in the linux space. Microsoft won't give a shit about running linux... they'll care about how it runs Windows, and make a token pitiful effort at getting it running linux.

I think VMWare will be fine so long as they keep th

Re:

[drsmithy (35869)]

Unless VMware gets its act together it's going to lose market share pretty quickly. The documentation is awful. Just. Fucking. Awful. There's tons of it to be sure, but it's contradictory, badly written, confusing and downright wrong in places.

Maybe so, but it's streets ahead of the documentation of the Linux-based offerings (to say nothing of the UI and management tools). VMWare have a long, long way to fall before any of the current alternatives knock them off (through either fair means _or_ foul).

Re:

[flyingfsck (986395)]

Huh? What do you need documentation for Vmware for? I've been using it for years and never used the docs.

Re:

[Psiren (6145)]

But currently it looks like it's the last 5% that actually depend on, and use virtualisation. The rest just want an internet browser, and something to sync their ipods to.

We're talking about servers here. Essential infrastructure for any business large or small. What the hell have ipods and browsers got to do with it?

Virtualization

[smitty_one_each (243267)]

Virtualization
Sweeps the nation
But can it cure
Follicle frustraion?
Burma Shave

Re:Scary?-The future.

[QuantumG (50515)]

Xen won't squeeze VMWare out until they get themselves a freakin' UI that is usable.

Re:

[wzzrd (545802)]

Mostly that the information it presents is not always consistent with what you find on the service console of you individual ESX servers and that it misses some functionality (like batch-creating VM's). Apart from that, VC is an extremely slow application (just *selecting* a couple dozen ESX hosts slows it to a crawl) and written in .Net, binding me to a platform I would rather not be bound to. I'm pretty sure I am not the only one complaining about this. My parent post was meant as a poke in the ribs. VC

Re:

[Quikah (14419)]

Couple of dozen esx hosts? How many VMs are you running? VC was pretty unusable at that level in 2.0, they have made improvements in 2.5, but I agree it is still way too slow.

Regardless I will take the slow clunky VC over the Xen UUID nightmare. Ugg. I have a Xensource Enterprise setup with about 120 VMs, it is beyond pain, Xencenter is completely useless. It DOES NOTHING. You cannot configure anything beyond the VERY basics with it.

Re:Scary?

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

Usually Microsft's first attempt *is* someone else's first attempt. Their roduct development roadmap is a case of "that's cool, we must have some of that, buy that company".

Who did they buy to get Virtual PC in the first place? I'd be very surprised to hear that they developed it entirely in-house.

This endeavour will be somewhat successful - VPC is out there at the moment, and its free since roughly the same time VMWare offered VMWare server for free (go figure :) ). If this hypervisor is not free too, then it'll have a hard time being adopted by companies that are used to, and happy with, VMWare.

If they do give their hypervisor away for free, then VMware will release ESX too and nothing will really change! I think this can only be a good thing for us :-)

Re:Scary?

[atezun (755568)]

Since you asked, Microsoft obtained VirtualPC when they bought out Connectix.

Re:

[gbjbaanb (229885)]

cheers for that. I was beginning to get worried as I typed that message... perhaps Microsoft had actually produced some original software. Normal service is now resumed and I can get back to my knocked off from Java development.

Re:Scary? Well, I for one welcomed Innotek's

[davidsyes (765062)]

VirtualBox. It's friendlier, easier, and damned convenient. I didn't give a RAT'S ASS about the two particular no-virtualization allowed for Basic and Home Premium. And, why SHOULD I or anyone have. It's an onerous, specious, vicious, odious clause. The lawyers and execs who inserted it should be flogged.

Re:Scary?

[kripkenstein (913150)]

If they [Microsoft] do give their hypervisor away for free, then VMware will release ESX too and nothing will really change! I think this can only be a good thing for us :-)

Unless after a few years of giving away their products for free, VMware goes bankrupt. Microsoft, on the other hand, remains extremely wealthy due to Windows and Office revenue, and then proceeds to charge money for Microsoft virtualization products. This is a good thing only for Microsoft, and they've done it before.

Re:

[smilindog2000 (907665)]

No need to fear... VirtualBox and Xen have already gone open-source, so regardless of their profit status, their code will continue to benefit the world. I'm a fan of VMware and hope they do well, but they may need a similar model to Xen and VirtualBox to have real staying power.

What worries me.

[marcello_dl (667940)]

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.

Re:

[Migala77 (1179151)]

I would also think about the way IE turned into an awfully modularized insecure POS after winning.

I disagree. IE just didn't improve much after winning. It always was a POS. Just as netscape was. Neither product was very standards-compliant, mostly because the standards were also POSs (PsOS?) at the time. The decision to rewrite Netscape wasn't taken because it was a perfect product. Luckily we now have better, more standards-compliant alternatives.

Re:

[CarpetShark (865376)]

I would also think about the way IE turned into an awfully modularized insecure POS after winning.

It turned into a piece of shit? I'm pretty sure it was one of the Microsoft-types who showcased IE7 said that it started out as a piece of shit. Of course, he was claiming it had improved, particularly with 7, but we all know the truth of that.

Gates announces...

[by Anonymous Coward]

... the solution to Vista is to use it to run Ubuntu inside VMWare...?

Other way around ...

[by Anonymous Coward]

the solution to Vista is to use it to run Ubuntu inside VMWare

The true solution is the other way around. Use Ubuntu with KVM http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kernel-based_Virtual_Machine [wikipedia.org] to run a virtualised copy of Vista.

FTA:

The pieces of the picture will include: ... and lower price for Windows Vista used on virtualized computers.

You get to run Linux as your main (secure, stable, malware-free) OS, and you get a cheaper Vista, which you might need to run the odd Windows-only application.

Re:

[by Anonymous Coward]

No, MS wouldn't say that as win2k runs better under VT than Vista or XP and there's none of the activation bullshit either.

I just hope VirtualPC gets updated...

[mlts (1038732)]

I hope that even with the Hyper-V stuff that is based in Windows Server 2008, that MS keeps VirtualPC updated. For what it does, its excellent as a quick and dirty hypervisor, especially for stuff like Thinstall where you just need to open a VM briefly to do a check before installing, install a program, run the afterwards delta, then build the Thinstalled output. No special client or Web server needed (as opposed to the latest VMWare 2.0 beta which seemed to require a full Java, Apache and Tomcat install and available to the world to even turn on.)

The Hyper-V implementation in the RC1 build of Windows Server 2008 requires your CPU have specific hardware virtualization built in, so you can't really use it on anything less than midrange+ hardware. Maybe its a good thing, as MS is likely intending this for machines designed for being VM servers from the ground up.

Puzzled by Windows Vista price reduction

[scsirob (246572)]

Why would you want to run a consumer desktop operating system in a virtual environent? How will that help you being more efficient? Microsoft can't be seriously promoting the use of their desktop OS for server tasks, are they??

Re:

[theskipper (461997)]

Why would you want to run a consumer desktop operating system in a virtual environent? How will that help you being more efficient? Microsoft can't be seriously promoting the use of their desktop OS for server tasks, are they??

I'm running Ubuntu (AMD-64) on two home and three business machines. Each has XP virtualized (512MB memory, 8GB image) for the few apps that couldn't pass muster with Wine (or Crossover). Acrobat 7.0, for example. All XP instances are full retail licenses, perfectly legal via an MS

Vista now virtualisable

[mccalli (323026)]

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

also Microsoft hires Linux core developer

[wwmedia (950346)]

Crispin Cowan is the designer and primary author of AppArmor, a kernel service which implements a mandatory access control system. [msdn.com]

Wow

[by Anonymous Coward]

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"

Conflict of interest

[lnxpilot (453564)]

And who in their right mind will get virtualization software from Microsoft?

One of the main reasons for virtualization to is to run other, competing OSs (mostly Linux) on the same hardware.

You can bet M$ would do everything to make Linux look bad: "see, same hardware, XP / Vista runs better".

It's like putting Ford in charge of building roads and gas stations.
How long do you think before Toyotas, Hondas etc. will develop "unexpected" engine problems from the gasoline served there?

Re:

[TeknoHog (164938)]

In this sense, choosing MS as the virtualisation provider for the MS operating system is a win-win.

Of course MS-MS is a win-win, becauce 'win' is often associated with Windows. However, that in turn brings to mind 'loss' (of productivity, security, performance, etc.), so 'win-win' is not necessarily a good thing. I prefer saying 'lin-lin' when describing a mutually beneficial outcome.

Re:

[cbart387 (1192883)]

Congratulations. You made me both groan and agree with you at the same time. ;)

Part of the virtualization strategy...

[Dystopian Rebel (714995)]

should be to run a virtualized Ballmer so that they can shut him down whenever he puts both of his dancing shoes in his mouth during interviews.

Interviewer: "Mr Ballmer, how cool is the Brown Zune?"

Ballmer: "It's an iPod killer. I squirt to you, you squirt to me and then..."

[Ballmer disappears suddenly]

Interviewer: "Wha... What happened?"

Voice From Above: "Do Not Worry. The Virtual Ballmer Has Been Shut Down. Your Interview Has Not Been Affected."

Deployments

[cshbell (931989)]

Microsoft is completely missing that what its enterprise customers *really* want is a Type-1 hypervisor (akin to Hyper-V) for desktops and laptops. It would radically simplify deployments; rather than having to maintain an RIS/WDS server with different images for different hardware configurations, a company could just have one software image for all the boxes and let the hypervisor worry about the hardware.

From a device security perspective, this could be useful too, as the hypervisor could be tuned to onl

two things to worry about?

[drfireman (101623)]

Does this mean that xen will become subtly but increasingly unstable on the linux platform?

Does this mean that Microsoft is going to launch a virtualization patent army (of lawyers), forcing vmware to devote most of its resources to legal matters?

I think this is a good thing

[HaloMan (314646)]

No, seriously. VMWare having some decent competition isn't going to do any harm - and VMWare will still dominate the Linux market which is not insignificant - and everyone legally allowed to virtualise any version of Vista is great news for everybody including VMWare, if belated.

Microsoft wanting a piece of the market could easily result in great products being created. Look at the recent versions of IIS that have been a vast improvement thanks to the old versions being crappy compared to Apache. Even MS realise that people who are interested in this sort of thing aren't after any old shit.

cant we fork it !?!?!

[noobstate (1224768)]

since its under GPL, is it possible for someone to just FORK XEN now and not even worry about it ... or is there no point since it is GPL and open source ... but is it possible for microsoft to change license later down the line screwing everyone into paying ?!? Microsoft cant be trusted, thats a fact. why doesn't someone just fork it now steal all the true open source developers and move on .. something with such great potential (Enterprise wise) shouldn't be trusted within a corporation noways. it sho

Put up or shut up

[ZenKen (963177)]

I don't think MS is in the same position they were twelve years ago. Microsoft Live still has yet to compete with Google (even in mindshare). I think people are starting to believe (thanks to various communities like Open Source) that MS needs to actually put up or shut up. I think gone are the days of 'announcing' a competitive product and delivering one (and increasingly, a better one).

VMWare isn't going anywhere soon

[goldspider (445116)]

VMWare will automatically move virtual servers off of failing hardware; you need your servers to be clustered to get similar functionality from Microsoft.

Until Microsoft's virtualization offering has the hardware independence that VMWare has, many businesses will (correctly) consider it a weak product.

Different philosophy

[Natales (182136)]

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 [vmware.com]), 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 [vmware.com]) 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 [sourceforge.net].

On top of that, VMware has open sourced their virtual disk format (VMDK [vmware.com]), has collaborated with Xen on a completely open VM portable packaging format (OVF [vmware.com]), and has a number of fully open source programs [vmware.com]. 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.

Virtualize Linux

[pesc (147035)]

Windows virtualization strategy is to embrace Linux in the server rooms by virtualizing it. This will degrade Linux from an operating system to an application stack. You will buy the OS from Microsoft, and the Linux application stack from Novell.

Thus, Microsoft will extend Linux by providing better drivers to proprietary HW, nice managing consoles, etc.

When this is sufficiently entrenched, the extinguish phase can begin when somehow Microsofts virtualized software stacks run better than the virtualized Linux stack.

Re:

[Reivec (607341)]

That is a rather short sighted view of virtualization. The more common use would be to use a high end server to run multiple instances of a windows OS on it at the same time thus turning one physical server into several virtual servers. It is cheaper to run that way and with VMware at least there are other nifty tricks that go along with that. Like being able to move your virtual servers from node to node seamlessly without making the server go down, yet you can still move all the servers off your hardwar