Virtualization Automation – A Proper Virtual World

Major Tom, Cough, VMware The Count Goes On!

August 15th, 2007

This is not just a gripe about VMware for its own sake; but referencing VMware as a real life example, of what the virtualization industry is doing to its-self, because as the dominant solution goes, the competition must go, including Xen, Citrix, Microsoft, and others…

I realized while listening to a Peter Schilling extended remix of the song Major Tom, on my iPod, it was a true metaphor for VMware, including its past, present, and potential future. Why am I saying this? Let me enumerate, VMware launched a great idea, per the song… standing there alone… so was Major Tom launched into space. VMware was praised as the foundation of a new era of computing, so was Major Tom named a hero for risking his life in space. And VMware has gone off the radar, listening to its customers, but not understanding its enterprise customers, like Major Tom, disappearing into black of space, never to be heard from again.

VMware on auto pilot? Not quite, but close, the industry so-called experts, Garner, etc. all say VMware must expand feature set or die. Add high availability, dynamic resource sharing, add, add, add, if it does not, the Microsoft dragon, will catch VMware in its jaws. Be it fear or lack of insight, VMware is getting lost in feature set expansion, and dragging Xen, and I expect the Microsoft Virtual Server product line by default, into this addictive feature for feature race, which truth be told, Microsoft started the original feature bloat craziness with the original Office suit for Macintosh/Windows, what, about 20 years ago? And it has only taken Microsoft 10 or 11 versions to get Office transparent and intuitive to any reasonable degree?

VMware does not have 20 years; it might not even have 20 months! Developer mind numbness, that feature set chasing induces, the real core of the Virtual Infrastructure platform, ESX and VirtualCenter (VC) suffer stability and consistency issues, per the song again… earth below us, drifting, falling… For example, performance issues in Virtual Center are so numerous it is almost unusable, and putting the horrible 1.x VC version side by side with VC 2.x, makes 1.x almost a dream come true in reference to speed. VC 2.x for all its scale and performance hype at release is now a joke, a very bad joke for VMware.

ESX, 2.0 had its quirks, 2.5.0 had some as well, but with 2.5.1 and 2.5.2, VMware achieved work-horse status and stability for the most part. Unfortunately, ESX 3.x has had a difficult time in comparison. For example, many large scale shops that moved to ESX 3.x very quickly realized after the fact that ESX 3.x was not as stable a platform as one would expect; per the song once more… ground control there is problem… go to rockets full… to Major Tom… Adding to the confusion for customers, hardware vendors that stated that ESX 3.x was certified are now suffering the venom and wrath of customers finding their HCLs as published are less then worthless at times since validation on paper appears to be reality or the norm. Don’t believe me? VMware has released about 1GB of fixes/corrections to ESX 3.0.1, since 10/2006 alone. That is more than double what the original OEM distribution was in size. HP and Dell have had to release firmware updates, hardware monitoring agent updates and related clarifications, and retractions on what is and is not compatible.  More than 2 years later, hardware vendors still give lip service to VMware ESX as a true operating system. Ever try to find a way to do online flashing of System BIOS from the ESX OS? Or Storage HBAs? And the issues continue. ESX 3.0.2 has been delayed, retired, revived, and then lost in the sands of time again, only to be released with updates only available in 3.0.2, that can not be found in ESX 3.0.1 patched? And Under the shadow of ESX 3.1? Now why is that the case?  Returning to the song playing in the background… and nothing more… VMware is making the problem worse, not better.

Fortunately, Major Tom does survive miracles of miracles; he regains control of his ship, saying… this is my home… I am coming home… I am coming home. The song begs the question, will VMware do the same?  Finding terra firma?  Enhancing its products, ESX, VC, etc., improving scale, stability and consistency, before adding yet more half-baked and incomplete features? Holding its HCL and hardware vendors to task, or is the VMware Alliance initiative part of the vacuum of deep space? Will VMware regain its sanity, returning home? I sincerely hope so! If not, Microsoft, so far the sleeping dragon will awaken, providing unimpressive, unenlightened virtualization that scales to a reasonable degree, is consistent, stable, and manageable, in the moronic if not intuitive Microsoft way, we all know so well. Should this happen, Microsoft will once again dominate the world of computing, expanding bite and sinking its teeth into virtualization. Alas, thus far from VMware, to quote the Major Tom song once more… there was no reply.

Entry Filed under: A Proper Virtual World