The last decade VMware about the only player in the field of server virtualization.
No-one could truly compete with them… but now both Citrix (XenServer) and Microsoft (Hyper-V) have developed a hypervisor and are taking over the market.
Therefor I asked myself the question “The virtualization war will be won on…?”.
Over the years the answer to that question has changed, so let’s start by handling them one by one.

The virtualization war will be won on… hypervisor.
This is the oldest way of thinking I’ve come across. When you look at the enhancements both Citrix and Microsoft have made the last two years in their hypervisor products, I don’t think this way of thinking is still accurate.
I think that, in time, any functionality VMware will think up and build into their hypervisor both Citrix and Microsoft will enhance and provide in their hypervisor in the next release… and goes both ways.

The virtualization war will be won on… marketing.
A few weeks ago I heard someone say this, and suddenly a shiver went down my spine.
The idea alone that such an important component of an IT environment could be chosen solely because of some great marketing campaign and not because of the best features and/or support, is something that scares the hell out of me…
In my opinion, this would be the same as when the Board of Directors of a company would choose for a specific storage vendor just because one of its members has seen some great marketing campaign. I’ve seen it happen before that management overruled the technicians and when the chosen solution was not right for their situation, the IT department would get a lot of disappointed users and in the end very annoyed colleagues.
In the end, when decisions are made by people without the proper information to base their decisions on, or by people without the required knowledge at all, trouble is just a matter of time.
Requirements that were not made clear or faulty expectations will not be met and people will get disappointed… not even mentioning the bulk of money spent that could have been invested in a solution that would have made people happy instead of disappointed.
I would like to mention that in this example I’ve chosen the Board of Directors that made the decision… this could also by an IT Professional. Just the concept of someone making decisions based on a marketing campaign instead of doing proper investigation is what I am trying to make clear in this story.

The virtualization war will be won on… management tooling.
I know of a few MVP’s that will probably kick my behind for writing this, but I think that also this way of thinking is “old”. With the recent or upcoming releases of the management tooling for the vendors to manage virtual environments, the tool will not be limited to just their own hypervisor. For example, System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) 2012 will be able to manage both XenServer and ESX(i)… and of course Hyper-V.
This will allow a single management tool to manage a multi hypervisor environment to be controlled through one management tool. Since the same is with VMware’s vSphere and Citrix’s XenCenter, I think that management tooling is not what will shift the balance in the virtualization war. However, I do think it is a strategic component in the war because of the time it takes for all separate management tools to “sync” their functionality.

The virtualization war will be won on… price.
This is something that has been my opinion for the last two years, and has been beautifully confirmed by VMware’s licensing debacle (or vTax if you would like to use the more common name).
Especially since the world is still in the financial crisis, or just still feeling its aftershocks, price is key.
Now let’s take two companies which both have 500 hosts and about 20.000 virtual machines, number one chooses VMware’s solution and number two chooses Microsoft’s solution. Both are enterprise customers, so they buy the full blown versions of the solutions.
Company one chooses VMware and it’s full blown solution, so they will get the following features:

· Hypervisor management.

· Deployment of virtual machines (based on templates).

· Monitoring your hypervisor hosts.

· Monitoring your virtual machines.

· Patch management for your hypervisors.

Company two chooses Microsoft. Since it’s an enterprise customer, Microsoft can offer them an enterprise agreement which allows them to get the entire System Center Suite for about the same price as “just” Hyper-V and SCVMM.
With this, they will get the following features:

· Hypervisor management.

· Deployment of virtual machines (bare metal and based on templates).

· Monitoring your hypervisor hosts.

· Monitoring your virtual machines.

· Monitoring your operating systems within the virtual machines.

· Patch management for your hypervisors.

· Patch management for operating systems within the virtual machines.

· Software distribution to the operating systems within the virtual machines.

As I stated, the management tooling is a strategic component in the virtualization war. When you look at the price and the corresponding features you will get with the management tooling, you will see that Microsoft offers a complete solution for you entire environment, including clients and not only the virtual environment.
Next to that, because VMware sees the virtual machines as a “black box” and doesn’t really knows what is going on within, in my opinion they can’t offer a complete monitoring solution.
As for Microsoft, with System Center Operations Manager (SCOM) you will be able to take a look within the virtual machine. But that’s a separate product, you say?!
Yes, that is correct. But because of the enterprise agreement, you will get this product as part of the System Center Suite and therefor with no extra costs. And since SCOM is a very extensive monitoring solution, you are not limited to just monitoring your virtual environment. You can monitor your storage, network connections between locations, routers and switches and much, much more…
Next to that, VMware’s solution doesn’t allow you to manage your client, only your virtual environment. Microsoft can offer you client management, again with a member of the System Center Suite, namely System Center Configurations Manager (SCCM).

The virtualization war will be won on… my conclusion?
Although VMware is still the market leader in the world of server virtualization, both Citrix and Microsoft are closing in at them from all sides.
The moment that the functionalities of the management tooling for the virtual environment from all vendors are “in sync”, that part of the war has been fought and has resulted in a stand-off.
When I look at the speed of Citrix and Microsoft in which they are gaining on VMware, I think this will be in the very near future.
And that brings me to my opinion, that the war will be won on price. If you could get more features and capabilities for the same price or even less somewhere else… would you stay where you are, or move forward?