VMware to start new OS war

I believe it is now obvious that VMware is trying to become an OS vendor, or a platform vendor — if you think that OS has a too narrow definition. Here is why:

1.    Virtual appliances — With virtual appliances, VMware is sending a clear message to ISVs — you develop for, run on, deploy on and service your applications on VMware – not on Windows or Linux. The OS is just a library or at best a middleware like Java or .NET, but not really a resource manager, which was always considered a primary OS function and value. And we all know that tools and libraries vendors never enjoyed nearly as much success as platform vendors. Moreover, VMware created its Virtual Appliance certification program, similar to application certification programs available from any OS vendor.

2.    Hardware alliances — VMware is striking partnerships with hardware OEMs like HP and IBM. Again, much like OS vendors, VMware is certifying computer hardware for compatibility with VMware. You can now buy an HP or IBM server with only VMware ESX and no other OS installed – not even Linux or Windows.

3.    Advanced OS features — VMware is including more and more sophisticated management and core features into its products, often way ahead of general-purpose OS vendors. For example, VMware already does CPU scheduling, memory management, storage management with its proprietary file system, network management, QoS management. With Virtual Infrastructure 3, VMware has added an array of very advanced management features including Distributed Resource Scheduling, High Availability, Consolidated Backup and a few more — features that OS vendors have been slow to develop but very appreciated by IT departments. Also, VMware has started to create its own data formats (Virtual Disk) and Management APIs — a clear attempt to establish VMware as a platform, not just a transparent system management middleware.

VMware is up for the big fight. Microsoft and Linux won’t give up easily, and even technically, it’s very hard to remove value from these two prevalent platforms, each with many thousands of APIs used by millions of software developers. On the other hand, Microsoft and Linux companies do recognize this threat. Why else would such a bitter foes like Microsoft and Novell make any sort of virtualization-related strategic pact? They know that despite the thousands of APIs and millions of developers, they, in all likelihood, won’t be able to beat VMware in its own game. Trying to catch up with VMware in hardware virtualization technology and tools is mission impossible – VMware is at least 3 years ahead of any competitor, and the gap is not shrinking.

This new OS war will have negative effect on almost everyone. ISVs will have to learn a new platform and change the way they develop applications. Users and IT professionals will be confused until the battle is over and they will have to change the way they use and operate computers, too. Virtualization is definitely a paradigm shift, but are all these drastic changes really necessary?

Virtuozzo is an alternative solution. OS virtualization provides the same benefits as hardware virtualization and more. Often, the benefits are delivered in a much more efficient manner. But most importantly, Virtuozzo naturally extends capabilities of existing platforms instead of replacing them, allowing everyone – from users to IT pros to developers – to go through virtualization paradigm shift with little stress.

What do you think is going to happen? Looking forward to your comments.

IBM Launches Virtualization management software

SWsoft CEO Serguei Beloussov

Virtualization continues to make waves in the IT industry. Last week, giants IBM and Microsoft took steps to shore up their position in virtualization.

First, let's look at the IBM announcement on virtual datacenter management.

Is IBM seeking relevance in the fast moving virtualization space? Last week's announcement seems to point to this, but I would argue that to some degree, IBM already has some relevance. After all, virtualization on the mainframe has been around for something like 40 years.

Maybe IBM wants to leverage that history to build some credibility in the x86 server market. Fair enough. Is last week's announcement an attempt by IBM to protect its Tivoli flank against VMWare Virtual Center?

If the answer is yes, this jibes with the notion that core virtualization will become a de facto technology in the datacenter and what really matters to customers is how virtual datacenters are managed.

This is something that SWsoft has been keenly aware of for some time and was the focus of our August 2006 announcement that Version 4.0 of our Virtuozzo software, due early in 2007, will include tools to manage different virtualization technologies in addition to our own. In fact, our multi-vendor management of virtualization goes beyond what IBM is offering since we not only cover hardware-based virtualization such as VMWare and Xen but also OS-based virtualization such as Virtuozzo. In addition, we will extend beyond management to datacenter automation to deliver the broadest range of performance, flexibility and value to our customers, across the entire virtual infrastructure.

Now, to the Microsoft/Novell announcement.

Call me biased, but since I am in the business of virtualization technology, I tend to look at news from the IT world with that perspective. Last week's announcement about Microsoft and Novell partnering is no exception.

Here is my take:

First, I’m happy to report that I am not alone looking at this announcement from this perspective. IDC analyst Vernon Turner says that "There are several key pillars to this announcement, including interoperability initiatives supporting virtualization, the interoperability of system management surrounding virtual servers…"

Microsoft is looking for partners to help them deal with the fact that in an increasingly heterogeneous world, going it alone is not sustainable. We agree. In fact, our own history in the service provider market with Microsoft bears this out. A few years ago, Microsoft had very small market share in the service provider/hosting market. They were completely against heterogeneous tools.

However, as always, Microsoft was able to relatively quickly turn around and partner with SWsoft to provide products and solutions for Windows for hosting customers, which has been a big success for both of us. 

Further, from where I sit, there are two x86 operating systems - Windows and Linux. I might argue that virtualization is becoming a third operating environment. Or, you could say that virtualization and the OS are becoming indistinguishable. That software layer - however it is defined - will be critical to managing tomorrow's virtual infrastructure. And if VMWare is the dominant player, then Microsoft needs to forge relationships that would help it compete in the virtual datacenter.

SWsoft and Microsoft have been working very closely on virtualization, which has proved to be a very viable competitive option to incumbent VMWare, and which we like to think as the next generation of server virtualization. In fact, operating system-level virtualization technology is a perfect complement to Microsoft in its quest to compete in the virtualization space. We welcome Microsoft's announcement. Watch this space for some exciting news in the near future that further proves this point.