PacLib performs VMware analysis but chooses Microsoft

The privately-owned industrial and commercial developer engaged Thomas Duryea Consulting to perform an analysis of the suitability of its environment for virtualisation using VMware technology.

The analysis involved monitoring PacLib’s servers for a month, according to IT manager David Furey.

“They came back with a proposal of about $25,000 in installation costs and another $25,000 in software costs,” Furey told iTnews.

“You’ve got to question whether it’s worth paying $50,000 for that. I know the VMware camp go on about features like VMotion, but for $50,000 I could pay someone to move my virtual machines for me.”

Furey decided instead to look at Microsoft’s Hyper-V, then in beta.

“To us, it looked like we weren’t losing any performance or benefits of virtualisation but we were saving a lot of money,” Furey explained.

“It just didn’t make financial sense to spend all that money [on vmware], when if we want to add more Hyper-Vs, it’s $49 per server.”

Furey was also comfortable with Microsoft’s roadmap to go from offering the ability to do live -- rather than only safe-state -- migration.

Live migration was demonstrated by Microsoft last month and is expected to be included as part of Windows Server 2008 R2.

Rosemary Stark, Microsoft Australia’s product manager for Windows Server and Infrastructure Products, believes the cost of Hyper-V is lowering the barriers to adoption of virtualisation.

“A lot of companies have virtualisation in pockets but it’s been very much at the high-end,” Stark said.

“The lower costs of Hyper-V has allowed people who wanted to virtualise their environment to do so.”

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