VMware Previews Future Hypervisor, Creates SMB Bundles

Published: October 8, 2007

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Server virtualization juggernaut VMware today gave a preview of its upcoming ESX Server 3.5 hypervisor and the related add-ons it plans to put on this hypervisor in its Virtual Infrastructure stack. The new hypervisor and its extensions are expected to be delivered to customers before the end of the year. In addition to talking about the new software, VMware provided pricing information for the VI stack and some details on special discounted bundles it will create for small and medium businesses.

The underlying ESX Server 3.5 hypervisor is very similar to the existing 3.0.1 hypervisor. That prior generation of VMware hypervisor could support quad-core processors, for instance, so ESX Server 3.5 did not need to have this added in. But new X64 processors from Intel and Advanced Micro Devices have special electronics aimed at supporting virtualization (that's VT and AMD-V, respectively), and the hypervisor needed to be tweaked to fully exploit these features and to make use of other enhancements, such as the nested page tables that are in the new "Barcelona" quad-core Opterons. ESX Server 3 was able to support 16 GB of main memory per virtual machine (up from 4 GB with ESX Server 2.5) and could only run guest operating systems in 32-bit mode when it was announced in June 2006 (ESX Server 2.5 only ran 32-bit guests, too, even on 64-bit iron). With ESX Server 3.0.1, 64-bit guest support was added for guest Linux and Windows platforms running on the hypervisor. With ESX Server 3.5, main memory per virtual machine can now go as high as 64 GB, and the total system capacity of a machine that is supporting ESX Sever can now go as high as 128 GB, up from 64 GB with ESX Server 3.0.1. SMP scalability of each virtual machine is still topping out at four processor cores, according to Jon Bock, senior product marketing manager at VMware, which is the same limit that prior ESX Server 3.X hypervisors had. (ESX Server 2.5 could only span two processor cores, whether they were in one socket or two.) The reason why VMware has not scaled the VirtualSMP capability beyond four cores is twofold. First, it is very hard to redo the hypervisor to scale further, and second, 95 percent of the installed licenses of ESX Server running today are on machines with four or fewer processors. Bock says there isn't demand for this feature, which means that XenSource and Virtual Iron, which can span a lot more cores in a virtual machine if a customer needs them to, have more scalability on this front than VMware--for a while yet, at least.

In addition to the new ESX Server 3.5 hypervisor, VMware is cooking up other goodies for its VI stack. The VMotion feature, which allows running virtual machines to be teleported from one physical server to another provided they are both connected to shared storage arrays, is getting a companion called Storage VMotion, according to Bock. This feature will allow the storage associated with a virtual machine to be passed around the network along with its virtual machine (either ahead of it or behind it, presumably). The upcoming hypervisor from VMware will also support SATA-style local storage arrays on servers, which is what plenty of entry and midrange servers use these days, and has support for selected InfiniBand and 10 Gigabit Ethernet networking cards, too, and can make use of TCP Segment Offload and Jumbo Frames features in networking cards to speed up networking and reduce the overhead on CPUs in the server when it comes to processing TCP/IP traffic.

ESX Server 3.5 will also support paravirtualized instances of Linux (which can help boost performance of those Linuxes as opposed to doing full instruction set virtualization on the X86 and X64 iron). The VI stack will also be given a new feature called VMware Update Manager, which will automate the patching of ESX Server hypervisors and their guest operating systems, and will have a new feature (in preview form) called Distributed Power Management, which will allow system administrators to set power thresholds for their servers and then let the VI software move workloads around the network as conditions change, shutting off as much hot iron as possible and still maintaining service levels for the applications. This is a companion feature to one called Distributed Resource Management, which was announced in June 2006 and which allowed workload balancing based on optimizing performance for workloads, not minimizing power use. It will be interesting to see what happens when you turn both of these programs on at the same time . . . .

When the new VI stack comes out later this year, ESX Server 3i, the stripped-down and embedded hypervisor that VMware previewed a month ago, will be available as a single-server product at a cost of $495 for every two processor sockets in the machine. (VMware charges by the socket, not by the processor cores in the socket.) The next larger configuration is called Infrastructure 3 Foundation (formerly known as the Starter edition), and it includes both the ESX Server 3.5 and 3i hypervisors, Consolidated Backup (for archiving VMs), and Update Manager. This Foundation edition will not have any restrictions on processor sockets, memory, or bandwidth, as Starter edition current has with the ESX 3.0.1 hypervisor. This will sell for $995 for every two CPU sockets in the server. Infrastructure 3 Standard edition adds in the VMware HA extensions to the hypervisor, which allows for disaster recovery; this costs $2,995 for every pair of CPU sockets. And Infrastructure 3 Enterprise Edition includes all of the above plus VMotion and Storage VMotion and the resource and power management modules; this will cost $5,750 per pair of sockets.

VMotion, Storage VMotion, and the DRS/DPM combination will be available as standalone products, but prices are not yet available. And a new release of the VirtualCenter command console--release 2.5, specifically--is also coming before the end of the year. As part of its new SMB bundles--VMware launched other SMB bundles in January of this year, as did XenSource, in an effort to expand their markets beyond early adopter enterprises--VMware has cooked up a capacity planning and VM creation and migration tool called VMware Guided Consolidation. This is getting mixed into the SMB bundles, as is training and consulting in some cases.

The first SMB bundle, which is technically called an acceleration kit, includes three two-socket licenses to VI3 Foundation edition and VirtualCenter Foundation plus this Guided Consolidation tool; it costs $2,995. The VI3 Standard High Availability kit comes with two two-socket licenses to VI3 Standard (including all the features above plus the HA extensions) for $5,995. The VI3 Midsize Acceleration Kit has three two-socket licenses to VI3 Enterprise Edition with all the goodies plus credits to acquire training or consulting for $14,495. VMware was unable to quantify the value of the training and consulting credits at press time.

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