Recent News and Events
Microsoft Readies for Virtualization Battle
By Richard Adhikari
September 4, 2008
Continuing its efforts to wrest market share
from incumbent VMware, Microsoft is planning
to hold a virtualization event focusing on its
own solutions, in Bellevue, Wash., Sept. 8,
exactly one week before VMware's user conference,
VMworld 2008, opens in Las Vegas.
The aim for Microsoft's "Get Virtual Now"
event is to show how the company's virtualization
products enable users to virtualize their systems
from the datacenter all the way to the desktop.
A key part of the message is likely to continue
Microsoft's assertion that IT officials can
manage virtual systems created with its products
with the same tools they already use for their
physical infrastructure.
Get Virtual Now will incorporate a trade show
and will feature third-party vendors, a number
of whom are also partnered with VMware, lining
up to pledge support for Hyper-V, Microsoft's
hypervisor .
As a result, the event will allow Microsoft
to show off the growing strength of its virtualization
ecosystem, a key front in its campaign against
VMware, which has a sprawling partnership network
of its own, having netted deals with CA, HP,
Red Hat, IBM, Symantec and others.
Microsoft's launch partners include representatives
from the hardware world, like Intel, AMD, HP
and Dell. The roster also includes VMware's
parent, the storage giant EMC, as well as Citrix,
which has been a Microsoft partner for some
time, despite marketing a competing virtualization
solution of its own.
Microsoft may also use next week's event to
formally inaugurate some critical new technologies,
including Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V, now available
in its final form after initially shipping with
Windows Server 2008 as a beta, and System Center
Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2008, which
went into public beta in April.
Microsoft's increasing presence in the virtualization
market has drawn several VMware partners to
offer Hyper-V compatibility. One is self-service
virtualization automation and lab management
software vendor Surgient.
Version 6.0 of Surgient's Virtual Automation
Platform adds support for Hyper-V and Windows
2008 Server, a move toward cross-compatibility
that the company sees as essential.
"Microsoft, because of who they are and
because of their operating system and their
embedding virtualization into it, have a unique
opportunity to gain market share in the virtualization
space," said Surgient CTO Dave Malcolm.
Microsoft "will have an impact on VMware
over time" but will increase the overall
size of the market as well, Malcolm added.
Other VMware partners now also supporting Hyper-V
are application acceleration appliance vendor
Certeon, which recently unveiled the aCelera
virtual appliance for VMware, and managed Microsoft
Exchange services vendor Azaleos.
It's unclear whether Microsoft will seize the
moment to address a shortcoming in an earlier
version of Hyper-V. In May, Microsoft said the
beta version of SCVMM 2008 did not work with
Hyper-V Release Candidate 1 when it became available
for download, although it did promise that it
would update SCVMM 2008 to address the incompatibility
(This article was adapted from InternetNews.com.)
