Hyper-V and VMware- What the Difference?

To drive efficiency and ROI, organizations today frequently require a large number of servers in various physical locations.

The use of virtualization technologies makes this possible. Through virtualization, a single piece of computer hardware can be shared by multiple virtual machines. The popularity of virtualization technology, on the other hand, can be attributed to a variety of advantages, including flexibility, cost-efficiency, scalability, reliability, and portability. However, the virtualization market is currently dominated by two major players i.e. Hyper-V and VMware.

Let us now go through them one by one.

What is Hyper-V?

Microsoft Hyper-V is a type-1, hypervisor that enables the creation and management of multiple virtualized versions of computer, known as virtual machines. Hyper-V provides a virtualization platform that can be used to build any type of IT infrastructure.

In this case, each virtual machine runs in its own isolated space, without interfering with the processes of other virtual machines.

What is VMware?

VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform for servers created by VMware. It includes the fundamental virtualization solutions that aid in the management, monitoring, and configuration of a virtual data centre. The hypervisor is the central component of vSphere.

Let us now look at the distinction between the two.

Hyper-V vs VMware

Both Hyper-V and VMware are extremely powerful hypervisors that can be used to run enterprise data centre production workloads. However, each has distinct characteristics that set them apart.

Each of these characteristics serves as the foundation for many people decision to use one hypervisor or another to run their enterprise data centers.

Data centers are built to support business applications by storing, managing, backing up, and recovering data. Many popular web hosting companies have their own data centers. One such example is HTS Data Center, for example, is the data center of the well-known web hosting company, HTS hosting.

Let’s look at the following areas in order to make the comparison:

•  Architecture: Hyper-V vs VMware

Hyper-V is a hypervisor of Type-1, because Hyper-V is installed as a role within Windows Server, many people believe it as a Type-2 hypervisor.

Hyper-V virtualizes processors and memory and employs a variety of partitions to expose services and I/O devices to guest virtual machines, while also providing isolation.

Partitions do not have direct access to the physical processor, but have a virtual representation of the CPU. However, alerts to the processor are handled by Hyper-V and routed to the appropriate partition.

Partitions are classified as either parent or child partitions. Each Hyper-V environment can only have one parent partition, which must be running a supported version of Windows server. Furthermore, multiple child partitions can be created by the parent partition to host guest operating system.

A Virtualization Service Provider is also included in the parent partition.

In child partitions, Hyper-V can support two types of operating systems: enlightened and un-enlightened.

The main distinction between the two is that the enlightened child partition includes Hyper-V integration components as well as Virtualization Service Client. Simultaneously, the un-enlightened child partition lacks the same components and simply emulates software.

On the other hand, VMware vSphere is a virtualization platform that consists of several components that must be installed and configured.

It is essentially a collection of virtualization products that allows you to create a computing platform.

Furthermore, VMware ESXi, a type-1 hypervisor used to directly manage host servers and run multiple guest virtual machines, is at the heart of VMware vSphere.

• Operating System: Hyper-V vs VMware

The entire point of the hypervisor's capabilities in virtualization is, to run guest operating systems.

Let's compare Hyper-V and VMware in terms of operating systems supported by each hypervisor.

VMware supports a broader range of guest operating systems.

However, it supports the following operating systems:

• Windows

• Linux

• Unix

• Macintosh, and others

In the case of Hyper-V, the number of supported guest operating system is limited.

• Memory: Hyper-V vs VMware

VMware and Hyper-V both use a number of memory-management techniques.

Dynamic memory is a technique used by Hyper-V to add more RAM to a running virtual machine.

The following configuration settings are available in Hyper-V dynamic memory component:

• Startup RAM

• Minimum RAM

• Maximum RAM

• Memory weight

• Memory buffer

On the other hand, VMkernel manages physical RAM on the host in VMware.

The VMkernel uses a portion of physical RAM for itself, while the remainder is used by virtual machines. Virtual and physical memory space is segmented into blocks known as pages. When physical memory is full, data for virtual pages that do not exist in physical memory is saved to disk.

• Storage: Hyper-V vs VMware

When it comes to running Hyper-V virtual machines, two key storage technologies are used. The first is Cluster Shared Volumes, and the second is the Resilient File System.

Cluster Shared Volumes enables multiple hosts to access Hyper-V virtual machines and simplifies storage provision in the Hyper-V environment, whereas users can access virtual machine files directly from a host server using Resilient File System. Moreover, it can detect and repair data corruptions in real time.

On the other hand, VMware has a solid storage platform that is the essential component of VMware vSphere solution.

The Virtual Machine File System is a file system format designed specifically for running VMware virtual machines. Multiple virtual machines can access and use a single Virtual Machine File system volume as virtualized storage, reducing management overhead and improving resource utilization.

There are a few more distinctions between Hyper-V and VMware. However, major distinctions have already been discussed.

Let’s now draw conclusions based on what we already discussed.

Conclusion:

It would be impossible to build and operate in a virtual environment without a dependable and efficient virtualization platform, such as VMware or Hyper-V.

Consider the differences in VMware and Hyper-V management, architecture, scalability, and backup integration before deciding which platform to use for your business.

Source: https://www.htshosting.org/knowledge-base/technology/169/hyper-v-and-vmware-what-the-difference