In the eyes of corporate IT shops the word virtualization is synonymous with the VMware brand. The reason is this is simple, VMware was first to market with solutions that could actually deliver tangible results to the business. VMware then made the most of this first mover advantage quickly diversifying their product portfolio away from just straight up virtualization into a massive service catalogue that no competitor has yet to match. There’s no denying that they’re the most pricey of the solutions however but many IT shops have been willing to wear the costs due to the benefits that they receive. However in the past couple years or so the competitors, namely Hyper-V and Xen, have started to catch up in features and this has seen many IT shops questioning their heavy investment in VMware.
Undoubtedly this dissatisfaction with VMware’s products has been catalysed by the licensing change in vSphere 5 which definitely gave the small to medium section of the market some pause when it came to keeping VMware as a platform. For larger enterprises it wasn’t so much of a big deal since realistically they’d already licensed most of their capacity anyway. Still it’s been enough for most of them to cast a careful eye over their current spend levels on VMware’s products and seek to see if there’s perhaps a better way to spend all that cash. Indeed a recent survey commissioned by Veeam showed that 38% of virtualized businesses were looking to switch platforms in the near future.
The report doesn’t break down into exactly which platform they’re switching from and to but since the 3 biggest reasons cited are cost, alternative hypervisor features and licensing model (all long time complaints of the VMware platform) it’s a safe bet that most of those people are considering changing from VMware to another platform (typically Hyper-V). Indeed I can add that anecdotally the costs of VMware are enough now that business are seriously considering the platform swap because of the potential savings from a licensing perspective. Hyper-V is the main contender because most virtualization is done with Windows servers and under the typical licensing agreements the hypervisor is usually completely free. Indeed even the most basic of Windows server licenses gives you 1 free virtual machine to play with and it just gets better from there.
But why are so many considering switching from the market leader now when the problems cited have been around nearly half a decade? For the most part it has to do with the alternatives finally reaching feature parity with VMware when it comes to base level functionality. For the longest time VMware was the only one that was capable of doing live migrations between hosts with technology they called vMotion. Xen caught up quickly but their lack of Windows support meant that it saw limited use in corporate environments, even after the support was added in shortly after. Hyper-V on the other hand struggled to get it working only releasing it with Server 2008 R2. With Windows 2003 and XP now on the way out many IT shops are now looking to upgrade to 2008 R2 and that’s when they notice the capabilities of Hyper-V.
Strictly speaking though I’d say that whilst there’s a good few people considering making the jump from VMware to another hypervisor the majority are only doing so in order to get a better deal out of VMware. Like any business arrangement the difference between the retail price and the actual price anyone pays is quite large and VMware is no exception to this rule. I’ve seen quite a few decision makers wave the Hyper-V card without even the most rudimentary of understanding of what it’s capabilities are, nor any concrete plans to put it in motion. There’s also the fact that if you’re based on VMware now and you switch to another platform you’re going to have to make sure all your staff are retrained with the new product, a costly and time consuming exercise. So whilst the switch from VMware may look like the cheaper option if you just look at the licensing there’s a whole swath of hidden and intangible costs that need to be taken into consideration.
So with that all said is VMware staring down the barrel of a inevitable demise? I don’t believe so, their market capture and product lead means that they’ve got a solid advantage over everyone in the market. Should the other hypervisors begin eating away at their market share they have enough of a lead to be able to react in time, either by significantly reducing their prices or simply innovating their way ahead again. I will be interested to see how these figures shape up in say 3/9/12 months from now to see if those 38%ers made good on their pledge to change platforms but I’m pretty sure I know the outcome already.
