Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 narrows the gap

With the release of Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V gains increased scalability in terms of both raw specs and features that make larger environments easer to manage. Hyper-V 2012 pushes the limits to 4TB of RAM per host and 64 nodes per cluster, and it adds advanced features such as a virtual switch, a virtual SAN, and live storage migration that were previously available only from VMware. It also includes native clustering capability, so you have the ability to build a highly available virtual machine cluster with commodity hardware and two OS licenses.

Although Microsoft has made great strides in many feature areas, there is still a fairly substantial gap between Hyper-V and VMware vSphere at the high end. VMware has many features focused on service providers, whether they're companies offering services for sale or large enterprise IT departments delivering services to business units within the company. Hyper-V 2012 does not have anything like VMware's vSphere Storage DRS (Distributed Resource Scheduler), for example, where you can provision different classes of storage based on a set of requirements to include cost and performance. Hyper-V also lacks many of the new virtual data centre features recently introduced by VMware. (See my review of VMware vSphere 5.1.)

That said, Hyper-V 2012 also introduces many new features that make it more attractive to small and midsized companies where cost is a significant driver. The new capabilities in SMB 3.0 allow anyone to stand up an HA Hyper-V cluster using low-cost servers and commodity SAS disk drives. In the past you would have been required to purchase a high-dollar storage system to get the same level of reliability, and you would have needed to buy the virtualisation software from a vendor other than Microsoft. Low-cost HA clustering alone will make IT managers think twice about spending scarce IT budget dollars on additional software when Windows Server 2012 comes with Hyper-V in the box.

In addition to examining features and manageability, I ran a few performance tests. Using the Sandra 2013 benchmarks for a Windows 32-bit client, I tested Windows VM performance under vSphere 5.0, vSphere 5.1, Hyper-V under Windows Server 2008 R2, and Hyper-V under Windows Server 2012. The server hardware used for this review was a Dell PowerEdge R715 with dual AMD Opteron 6380 CPUs, 64GB of memory, and two Seagate ST9300605SS 10K 300GB SAS drives configured as a RAID1 array.

Installation and configuration: Hyper-V 2012 couldn't be any easier to install in Windows Server 2012. Simply choose the Hyper-V role from the Server Manager application, click through a few screens, and you're done. Be aware that the install will require a reboot of your server. You'll need to go through a few basic configuration steps before you can actually deploy VMs on your new Hyper-V installation. All Hyper-V 2012 VMs require a virtual switch connection in order to communicate over the network. Because a virtual switch must be connected to an underlying network interface for a physical connection, you must configure this connection after Hyper-V is installed.

While included in Windows Server 2012, Hyper-V 2012 is also available in a free stand-alone version. This product essentially installs a server-core version of Windows Server 2012 with a minimal user interface. It's intended to be managed remotely, with just a few options and controls available from the console. These include details such as changing the computer name, networking configuration, enabling remote desktop, and powering down the system. Adding a Hyper-V Server 2012 host to the management console on another Windows Server 2012 machine requires merely a right-click and the entry of the Hyper-V server's IP address.

New and improved: A number of new capabilities introduced in Hyper-V 2012 extend existing features. For example, live migration of running VMs, which previously required shared storage, can now be done in a nonclustered environment. This feature is called "shared nothing migration" in some circles. Live storage migration -- a new feature that aims at parity with VMware -- makes it possible to move the virtual hard disks in use by a running VM to a different storage device. These two features combined make it possible to move running VMs between any connected machines on a domain.

Hyper-V Replica, which provides unlimited, host-to-host replication of virtual machines without shared storage, brings Microsoft up to par with other virtualisation vendors in the area of redundancy. The ability to store Hyper-V disks on SMB shares is yet another feature that delivers a new level of resiliency in the form of Cluster Shared Volumes for SMB file stores. Cluster Shared Volumes essentially eliminates the need for high-cost storage to deploy an HA virtualisation solution. The new Hyper-V Extensible Switch provides a platform upon which networking vendors can build new functionality. Hyper-V switch extensions might include network-based virus protection or intrusion detection solutions, for example.

On the numbers front, there are gains in the amount of memory an individual guest can support (1TB vs. 64GB in Windows Server 2008 R2), logical processors per host (320 vs. 64), and nodes per cluster (64 vs. 16). The total number of virtual processors per host is now 2,048, up from 512 in Windows Server 2008 R2. A single host can now support up to 1,024 active VMs as opposed to 384 in the previous release. Support for Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) inside virtual machines is new to Hyper-V 2012 as well.

Managing Hyper-V 2012: Microsoft has two basic paths for managing Hyper-V 2012 out of the box, using either the graphical user interface Hyper-V Manager or PowerShell. Either way, the work gets done with PowerShell commands and scripts behind the scenes. The real power behind both management paths is the ability to manage multiple machines from a single console. Hyper-V Manager can manage any number of different Hyper-V hosts, all from within the same console. Even for small deployments, managing Hyper-V through Hyper-V Manager is much more efficient than remotely logging into each machine. The wizard-based approach to guiding you through most of the management tasks helps fledgling Hyper-V administrators get the job done.

PowerShell 3.0 is without question one of the other huge productivity gains for IT administrators responsible for supporting Windows Server 2012. With something like 2,430 new "cmdlets," there isn't an area of managing a Windows Server 2012 deployment without some support through PowerShell. With respect to Hyper-V 2012, there are upward of 140 unique cmdlets for managing all aspects of creating, provisioning, and running VMs. That number also includes cmdlets for managing the virtual network switch and other Hyper-V 2012 configuration parameters.

The next level of VM management comes in the form of Microsoft's System centre Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM). SCVMM 2012 is the latest version but does not support Windows Server 2012 unless you apply Service Pack 1. Microsoft does offer a fully functional Hyper-V instance of SCVMM 2012 SP1 that includes the required SQL Server back end. You can install this on a Hyper-V 2012 host and manage other Windows Server 2012 systems once the configuration is complete. SCVMM 2012 is definitely the way to go for any organization with a large number of VMs.

Performance gains: Hyper-V 2012 includes a number of improvements in the area of performance. As you can see from the comparative table, which shows Sandra 2013 test results for a 32-bit Windows 7 SP1 VM, the most obvious is in the area of the crypto bandwidth tests. Previous versions of Hyper-V did not support AES-NI instructions in Intel's Westmere CPUs or in the AMD Bulldozer CPUs. Hyper-V 2012 provides this support, as the numbers clearly show. Almost across the board, my Sandra results showed performance of Hyper-V 2012 improved over Hyper-V 2008 and even VMware vSphere 5.1. (Note: I did not test performance of Linux VMs.)

Other areas of performance gain are hard to measure directly but are present nonetheless. These include the virtual SAN support, which allows you to connect a VM directly to a virtual Fibre Channel host bus adapter. This makes it possible to provision a VM with direct-attached storage to support specific workloads that in the past would have required a dedicated server. Another key improvement in the I/O area is new support for Single-Root I/O virtualis ation. Allowing supporting physical network interfaces to be carved into multiple virtual NICs, SR-IOV improves the Hyper-V host's networking functionality and overall throughput.

Final analysis: Hyper-V 2012 combines significant management and usability improvements with solid performance, especially for the purpose of virtualis ing many typical Windows workloads. New PowerShell cmdlets streamline the process of automating many of the tedious administration tasks previously requiring significant amounts of hands-on time. While there aren't any huge performance improvements from the individual guest perspective, the new I/O bandwidth features could represent significant areas for gains. When you couple that with other new OS features like SMB failover and clustering, you have the makings of a solid foundational product.

Now read: Virtualisation showdown: Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 vs. VMware vSphere 5.1

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Virtualisation showdown: Microsoft Hyper-V 2012 vs. VMware vSphere 5.1

Any comparison of Microsoft's Hyper-V versus VMware's vSphere has to take into consideration a number of different factors. First, there's the target customer and the feature set for different sizes of deployments. The needs vary widely depending on the number of virtual machine instances, and these requirements should drive the architecture and configuration choices. Second, there is the topic of management, which is also tied closely to the size of the installation. Beyond these considerations are a number of other issues, including cost, performance, scalability, and usability.

For example, when you install VMware ESXi on a host machine, you have a bare-metal hypervisor that runs independently of any operating system. If you use Windows Server 2012 as the foundation of your virtual infrastructure, you have an operating system that must be patched and updated periodically. That's not to say VMware ESXi doesn't need patches or updates from time to time, but it definitely has a smaller footprint than does Hyper-V.

We'll look at all of these issues and try to compare and contrast the two products from these angles. In the end, the answer depends on all of these factors. The best choice for a small or medium-sized deployment won't necessarily be the same as for a large-scale operation. Other details to consider include corporate culture, existing infrastructure, and history with either of the two products.

Target customer: VMware still has the edge when it comes to the high-end, high-volume virtualisation customer. VMware features such as the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) address the needs of large environments running large numbers of VMs with varied resource requirements. At the other end of the spectrum, you have to give the nod to Microsoft. If a small-to-medium-size business is purchasing Windows Server 2012 anyway, it doesn't make sense to also purchase VMware's vSphere to virtualise a few specific functions.

The hard-to-answer question is at what point it makes sense to go with VMware. Hyper-V 2012 leverages new capabilities in SMB 3.0 that give even the smallest shops the ability to stand up a high-availability cluster using low-cost servers and commodity SAS disk drives. Hyper-V 2012's host-to-host VM replication provides an additional level of redundancy not previously available from Microsoft and levels the playing field from that perspective.

At the same time, VMware has a similar function that uses the same Microsoft Volume Shadow Copy Service (VSS) under the covers. These and many other similarities make comparing the two products problematic. In the end they are both compelling products with plenty of capabilities that you can tweak to meet most any virtualisation need.

Management tools: At the low end, Microsoft gives you a basic set of tools in Hyper-V Manager, which comes as an installable option with Windows Server 2012. VMware's traditional management tool, the VMware vSphere Client, is a free client you must install on a Windows PC. Both offerings connect to remote hosts, allowing you to manage any system you can reach over the network.

Some functions are not possible in the basic management tools for either product. Advantage here goes to Microsoft as Hyper-V Manager can, for example, export a VM, then do an import to clone or copy the VM. With VMware you must be connected to vcentre Server in order to export or clone a VM. With respect to monitoring, however, the VMware vSphere Client provides much more information about both the host servers and the client VMs. VMware scores a point here for a more detailed graphical presentation.

VMware provides vcentre Server for managing large installations while Microsoft offers System centre 2012. The latest release of vcentre (5.1) adds a Web client to the mix, providing the ability to manage your VMware infrastructure from literally anywhere. Both VMware and Microsoft support automated management using Windows PowerShell. VMware offers a free add-on called PowerCLI that includes a long list of custom PowerShell cmdlets for managing your vSphere infrastructure.

Performance and scalability: Deciding how to measure performance and scalability presents a challenge when comparing these two products. Microsoft has made a number of enhancements in Hyper-V 2012 that in some cases exceed the outer limits of vSphere. If you want to gauge scalability in terms of raw numbers like nodes supported in a cluster (64 for Hyper-V 2012 vs. 32 for vSphere 5.1) or VMs in a cluster (8,000 for Hyper-V 2012 vs. 4,000 for vSphere 5.1), you would deduce that Microsoft takes that round.

But measuring real-world capacity goes way beyond the basic numbers. Case in point: Both products now support the concept of dynamic memory, albeit in different manners. With Hyper-V 2012, you can configure individual VMs with an initial memory allocation and allow the hypervisor to adjust the amount of memory depending on current needs. This is not the default option when creating a new VM but a configuration setting. VMware has had this feature for several years, and the company claims much more real-world experience in the realm of memory utilization. Advantage here goes to VMware, but Microsoft has narrowed that gap substantially with Hyper-V 2012.

At the individual VM level, I used the Sandra 2013 benchmarking tool to determine basic numbers of performance from a single VM running Windows 7 SP1. This VM was configured to have 2GB of memory and two virtual CPUs. I ran four different benchmarks using Hyper-V 2008, Hyper-V 2012, vSphere 5.0, and vSphere 5.1. You can see from the table that Hyper-V 2012 holds its own against vSphere, at least with respect to running Windows VMs. Note that I did not test performance of Linux VMs. (Tests were run on a Dell PowerEdge R715 with dual AMD Opteron 6380 CPUs, 64GB of memory, and two Seagate ST9300605SS 10K 300GB SAS drives configured as a RAID1 array.)  

The bottom line: Finally, one of the most difficult factors to compare is cost. If you're looking at a small number of virtualised servers running Windows Server 2012, you already get that with the purchase of the operating system. Windows Server 2012 Standard comes with two virtual instances, while Windows Server 2012 Datacentre includes an unlimited number of VMs on a single machine. It really doesn't make sense to purchase an additional virtualisation product for a small-to-medium deployment.

VMware pricing starts at £2,354 for VMware vSphere Essentials Plus Kit, plus the vSphere Storage Appliance, covering three hosts with two CPUs each. Pricing for the central management system starts at $1,495 for the VMware vcentre Server Foundation, which supports up to three hosts. VMware vcentre Server Standard, which supports an unlimited number of hosts, costs $4,995. VMware vSphere with Operations Management bundles add deeper monitoring and automation capabilities; they start at $1,745 per processor.

Microsoft charges a base price of $882 for Windows Server 2012 Standard and $4,809 for Windows Server 2012 Datacentre for one machine with up to two CPUs.UK pricing from the web is around £500. This does not include individual client access licenses (CALs), which are required for each user or device accessing the server, or coverage for additional CPUs. The base price for System centre 2012 is $3,607 for a two-CPU server license and unlimited number of managed operating systems.

Microsoft also has a private cloud offering for customers looking to deploy a minimum of 25 server instances. Called the Cloud Infrastructure Server Suite, it includes System centre 2012 and offers advanced features like self-service workflow, automated provisioning, usage metering, and virtual networks.

Nevertheless, VMware has a number of features for high-end users that Microsoft can't match -- notably the Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) and a more advanced virtual switch. DRS is a self-learning automation engine that balances load across both servers and storage devices. The vSphere Distributed Switch includes enhancements such as network health check, backup and restore, rollback and recovery, and LACP (Link Aggregation Control Protocol) support.

Choosing between the two vendors should be relatively easy for the high-end and low-end customers. VMware still wins the big shops, and Microsoft is now the clear choice for the small guys. The fight over the middle has only just begun, and it promises to be an interesting one. Microsoft will no doubt attempt to creep up the ladder while VMware will do everything in its power to keep the castle walls from being breeched.

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