Tag: vmware

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Competitive Advantages – Microsoft vs. VMware

More than a dozen videos were released at Technet site related to Hyper-V and System Center 2012. These videos are 4 courses part of Microsoft Virtual Academy. All these videos compare Microsoft Technologies against VMware’s. Even though these videos are created by Microsoft they show very accurate the difference between the technologies that are compared. We can see that how Microsoft is turning from follower to a leader in a lot of areas in the Virtualization and the Private Cloud. No further explanation is needed you can just watch the videos and make up your mind for the capabilities that both companies offer:

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Competitive Advantages of Hyper-V Server 2012 over VMware ESXi 5.0

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Competitive Advantages of System Center 2012 over VMware’s Management Technologies

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Competitive Advantages of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V over VMware vSphere 5.0

Microsoft Virtual Academy: Competitive Advantages of the Microsoft Private Cloud over the VMware Private Cloud

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter Release Candidate Available for download

Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter is part of Solution Accelerator tools. The release candiadate was just released for download on Microsoft Connect site. Here are the details about this version:

What is New in the Release Candidate?

In addition to the capabilities delivered as part of the Beta release, the Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter release candidate:

  • Converts and deploys virtual machines from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts running:
    • Windows Server® 2012 Release Candidate
    • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Release Candidate
  • Adds virtual network interface cards (NICs) to the converted virtual machine on Hyper-V.
  • Configures dynamic memory on the converted virtual machine.
  • Supports migration of virtual machines that are hosted on a vSphere cluster.
  • Supports migration of virtual machines to a Hyper-V host that is part of a failover cluster.
  • Enables Microsoft partners to cobrand the tool so that it incorporates their logos.

About This Solution Accelerator

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) provides a Microsoft-supported, freely available, standalone solution for converting VMware virtual machines (VMs) and VMware virtual disks (VMDKs) to Hyper-V virtual machines and Hyper-V virtual hard disks (VHDs). MVMC supports converting virtual machines using the following guest operating systems:

  • Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2003 R2 with Service Pack 2
  • Windows Server 2008 R2
  • Windows Server 2008
  • Windows 7
  • Windows Vista

System Requirements

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter converts VMware virtual machines created with:

  • VMware vSphere 4.1
  • VMware vSphere 5.0

To virtual machines for:

  • Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Hyper-V
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 SP1
  • Windows Server® 2012 Release Candidate
  • Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Release Candidate

Details

The Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter:

  • Provides a quick, low-risk option for VMware customers to evaluate Hyper-V
  • Converts the virtual disks and the VMware VMs configuration, such as memory, virtual processor, and other machine settings from the source
  • Uninstalls the VMware tools on the source VM and installs the Hyper-V Integration Services as appropriate
  • Includes an easy-to-use wizard-driven GUI simplifying VM conversion
  • Supports offline conversions of VMware virtual hard disks (VMDK) to a Hyper-V based virtual hard disk file format (VHD)

  • Includes a scriptable Command Line Interfaces (CLI) for performing machine conversion and offline disk conversion which integrates with datacenter automation workflows, such as those authored and executed within System Center Orchestrator. The command line can also be invoked through PowerShell.

Magic Quadrant for x86 Server Virtualization Infrastructure by Gartner

Gartner is one of the most respectful sources in IT for data and analysis. Every year they release a Magic Quadrant for Server Virtualization Infrastructure. It seems Microsoft Hyper-V and VMM are becoming a steady leader in this. For full information please read the article.

Free “Enterprise Virtual Machine Discovery Management Pack for Operations Manager 2007 R2 and 2012 (SCOM)” by Infront

Infront Consulting is providing free MP to the community. This MP is very useful if you have virtualization infrastructure with Hyper-V, VmWare or Citrix XenServer. Read the full capabilities of the MP and find download link on this article.

KB: Placing a highly available virtual machine on an ESXi Cluster in System Center 2012 Virtual Machine Manager fails

A new KB article from Microsoft Support targeted more for the beginners in VMM. Read it here.