Hyper-V is a virtualization software stack from Microsoft. It allows Windows Servers to run virtualized guests, including the ability to create and manage a virtualized environment with ease.
VMware is one of the largest vendors of desktop virtualization products globally.
Recently, VMware and Microsoft have been touting the merits of their products. However, with all of this well-promoted hype, how do you select one between VMware vs Hyper-V?
This article looks at and compares the differences between Hyper-V vs VMware.
What Is Hyper-V?
Hyper-V is designed to allow users to run multiple operating systems at once on the same PC (personal computer).
Whether you’re a professional user or just an everyday person who wants to have multiple virtual desktops or instances of an operating system on your home computer, Hyper-V allows you to do it.
Hyper-V users can run different operating systems simultaneously. Each operating system will be running in its virtual machine environment.
Plus, each virtual machine that the Hyper-V software creates can run its apps. It can also keep its files and access its internet connection.
This allows easy switching between windows and apps running with one operating system versus another. It also enables access to different files that only exist with one operating system instead of another.
Key Features of Hyper-V
When comparing Hypervisor vs VMWare, you first need to look at the features Hyper-V offers.
Virtual Machine Isolation
Each virtual machine runs in its own isolated space. This means each machine has its memory, storage, and completely different network resources.
So, if one virtual machine becomes infected with malware or crashes, the other machines won’t be affected.
Virtual Machine Checkpointing
This feature enables you to take snapshots of the state of a virtual machine at any time. If something goes wrong, you can roll back to a previous snapshot and get your data back up and running.
Live Migration
Hyper-V supports live migration. This allows you to move virtual machines from one host server to another with no downtime for users or applications.
Backup and Recovery
Hyper-V is great. It’s like having a second computer in your computer, as the software makes your computer work like a second computer.
It’s similar to a hard drive. This software makes your computer work like a hard drive. It stores data, but it does so inside another virtual hard disk (VHD) file. This VHD can be stored somewhere else, which means you can back it up and recover from it if you lose the original.
Connecting Remotely
Connecting remotely with the Hyper-V allows you to enable and disable some features of the Hyper-V. This can be done without having to navigate the local network. It’s important to note that connecting remotely with the Hyper-V may not be necessary for every situation.
What is VMware?
VMware’s cloud-based platform allows you to host virtual machines on the internet.
The platform lets you build your virtual machine for testing, development, and other purposes. You can also select from pre-built virtual machines available on their site.
Key Features of VMware
VMware is an industry leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure. Though there are many options for cloud services out there, VMware stands out from the crowd with a commitment to innovation, integration, and interoperability. Some of the key features that make VMware so impressive include:
Cloud Infrastructure
This feature helps businesses move beyond servers and data centers. With VMware, you can build your infrastructure, then run it anywhere. You can cut your costs by up to 50% while increasing the speed of your service delivery.
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
This feature gives workers access to all the applications they need, without dealing with complex software deployments or upgrades. They’ll be able to access everything they need at any time and from any place.
Cross-Cloud Architecture
This feature allows you to create a consistent app across all your clouds using common operations tools and development practices. It also ensures that your apps are compatible with multiple clouds at once.
VMware vCenter Server
VMware vCenter Server is a server that provides a centralized platform for management, operation, resource provisioning, and performance evaluation of virtual machines (VMs) residing on a distributed virtual data center. The vCenter Server allows an administrator to manage up to 10,000 VMs from one place.
VMware vSphere Client
VMware vSphere Client is a virtualization management program. It allows IT departments to do everything they need to manage both virtual and physical machines, such as:
- Deploying, managing, and monitoring virtual machines
- Managing ESX servers
- Managing networking on ESX servers
- Managing virtual storage
VMware Virtual SMP
Virtual Symmetric Multi-Processing (SMP), is the ability to use more than one physical processor on a virtual machine. The number of processors used by each virtual machine is referred to as “virtual sockets,” and the number of cores used per socket is referred to as “cores per socket.” Using VMware Virtual SMP allows you to use up to 64 physical processors.
VMware Storage vMotion
The process of using VMotion to migrate virtual machines from one host to another has been around for a long time, but Storage vMotion is relatively new.
Where traditional vMotion was limited to migrating live machines between hosts, Storage vMotion allows migration between different storage arrays.
This opens up some interesting possibilities for managing virtualization environments. Storage vMotion is also useful when performing maintenance in a virtualized environment.
VMware Fault Tolerance
Fault tolerance is a feature of VMware that ensures your virtual machines stay up and running despite hardware or software failure. It offers you protection against the downtime of critical applications, and it works alongside your high availability (HA) configuration.
Comparison Between Hyper-V and VMware
Comparing Hyper V vs VMware performance can be a bit like comparing apples and oranges. While both are virtualization solutions used to help companies manage their cloud-based server infrastructure, the way they go about this is quite different.
When looking at VMware workstation vs Hyper V, you’ll realize VMware differs in its approach to virtual storage; it uses virtual machine disk (VMDK) files instead of VHDX format.
The main difference is that VMDKs have an upper limit of 2 TB per file, which means you need multiple VMDKs to create a virtual machine with more than 2 TB of storage space.
It also has three different types of virtual switches: standard, distributed port group, and distributed logical router (DLR).
Conclusion
Make no mistake, choosing between Hyper V vs VMware workstation can be difficult.
You’ll need to consider several different factors, ultimately leading you to which option is right for your specific IT project.
This guide on the difference between Hyper V and VMware should help you make the best decision for your business.
