The SmallBizWindows Virtualization Product of the Year: VMware ESX 5
On the one hand we had a product that while relatively new, was one that we have a lot of experience with, and one that I use daily, even on lappers.
On the other hand, you have a product for which we started a pilot in September of 2010, got to know better, and we are in the process of deploying to an initial firm.
What did we find?
Product #1, from our primary software provider, is capable of handling all the tasks that we threw at it. We could have deployed it at any time to any of our clients, including the largish location we are currently deploying Product #2 at.
However, managing it would not have been as easy.
For Product #2, its maturity means that there are a great number of applications, plugins, snap-ins, whatever, that make the product better. The ecosystem surrounding the product is broad, and vibrant, and ready, today. Or at the time we needed them.
Most important however, is the community surrounding the product.
The VMware community is friendly, helpful, accessible, and very engaged.
In my journey, indeed, the Logikworx journey into learning about VMware, there hasn’t been any VMware professional – “VMware types”, in John Obeto-speak – that hasn’t taken, or wanted to take the time to help me along. They have ranged from VMware staffers like John Troyer, to VMware vExperts and authors, too numerous to mention here for fear of leaving someone out. These people embraced my thirst for knowledge about their charge without the sort of haughty airs you find about the freetards in say, the Linux community. Any and all requests I have made for more information ahs been answered with great dispatch, to where I fully expect a VMware professional from anywhere on this planet to answer questions at any time of day. Yes grasshopper, they are that engaged.
Contrast that to the Hyper-V community where the only ones who seem to engage with total strangers would be Hans Vredevoort, Microsoft Hyper-V MVP from the Netherlands. No one else, not even from Microsoft, answers any public (tweeted) call for help! It is an indictment on the entire Hyper-V community that information from them is wanting, and I can NEVER get it from them. Shame on you, turds!
All, however, is not lost. Hyper-V 3.0 (or whatever the moniker is) in Windows Server 8 looks to be a product that may finally move Hyper-V from trailing VMware to one that leaps ahead. However, that product is in pre-beta, and the proof, as they say, is in the eating. So, QED.
Ladies and gentlemen, the SmallBizWindows Virtualization Product of the Year is VMware ESX 5.
It is capable, thriving, innovative, manageable, and here. Today.
So, actually, it wasn’t a tough decision after all.
I would like to give props to John Troyer and his staff at VMware, David M Davis and TrianSignal, Steve Foskett and Gestalt IT, and all other people who have helped along this journey, either deliberately or inadvertently.
