September 11, 2008 8:07 AM PDT
Red Hat to VMware: Our virtualization rocks, yours stinks
As if VMware didn't already have enough problems, Red Hat has gone on the offensive, claiming that its new Qumranet virtualization software outperforms VMware's ESX in a number of key areas, as The Register reports. Specifically, Red Hat claims that its KVM software:
- Runs five virtual machines (VMs) for every three that VMware's ESX can run on the same physical hardware;
- Tops out at 52 VMs on a physical server while ESX can only manage 35, and Citrix gives in at 30.
I haven't seen any independent benchmarks, but if these claims are true than proprietary VMware has a serious problem on its hands. Not only will it be more expensive, but it's also apparently offering less performance. Not a good combination.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
How stable is RH offering? That is more important than performance. There are plenty of other metrics that are more important. How does Qumranet compare and why aren't you asking those much more important and relevant questions?
People who mindless value performance are those one that cheer if an operation is refactored so it runs 15 seconds faster, even though it is only called once a day at best, meanwhile a part of the program that could be reduced by 200 ms isn't considered even though it is called at least once a minute.
Why do so many people misunderstand performance and how it relates to real world use?
- by timmr72 September 11, 2008 11:09 AM PDT
- I didn't see where anyone talked about speed? Just performance (I believe relating to the number of VM's that could run simultaneously on one box in this context).
- Reply to this comment
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(3 Comments)I for one like the idea of running 52 VM's on a single host instead of only 30 or 35. Seems like a big benefit to me.
Not knowing much about Qumranet , I'm more curious about the management tools and things like:
- Hot migration of VM's
- Clones and snapshots of VM's
- Resource throttling
- Hot backups of VM's
If (and the author stated "if") these claims are true, and Redhat's Qumranet can compete on the above list of items....I would start to think about replacing our VI3 infrastructure.
Just my two cents.
-Tim