Who is Going to Win the Virtualization War?

With a couple of announcements by VMware directly tied to the release of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and the upcoming release of Microsoft's virtualization hypervisor Hyper-V, it appears these companies are starting to gear up for a heavyweight showdown.

VMware delivered the first blow by announcing it's agreements to embed VMware ESX 3i Hypervisor on HP, IBM, Dell and Fujitsu-Siemens servers. It's a "bare metal" system, meaning that it doesn't run on top of an installed operating system. Instead, the machine's resources can be sliced and diced into virtual servers directly from the hardware interfaces themselves.

"Just plug it in, and it's ready to run virtual machines," as one happy customer puts it. "You just start the server, answer a couple of questions, and you'll be up and running in a couple minutes," said Robin Prudholm, senior systems engineer at VMware.

VMware also said it will not support Windows Server 2008 immediately.

Meanwhile, Microsoft is set to release Windows Server 2008 which will allow "easy" integration with the upcoming release of Microsoft virtualization hypervisor Hyper-V. Server 2008 is a fairly safe bet and Microsoft's sell on the ultra-cheap (some would say free) Hyper-V makes for an enticing proposition.

But caution should abound, with experts on the company suggesting a waiting and testing period before using Hyper-V.

VMware will most likely win the early rounds, but like with other wars Microsoft has won, Microsoft could end up being the champ when it is said and done?

http://www.microsoft.com/virtualization/default.mspx

http://www.vmware.com/