A couple of days ago I commented on MS recent spate of articles about the surface footprint of the hypervisor.

http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/?p=1614

One of the comments on my blog pointed out a salient point. That’s if ESXi is so small – how come it needs a 2GB memory stick, and occupies more space than the alleged 30-60MB claimed by VMware?

Well, I think Eric Gray over at vcritical.com has made the definitive answer…

http://www.vcritical.com/2009/08/if-vmware-esxi-4-is-so-small-why-is-it-so-big/

It appears much of what is resident on the stick, does not include what is resident in memory. For example the ESXi stick contains a copy of the Vi Client and also the .ISO images used by VMware to install VMware Tools the guest operating system. Additionally, as ESXi can be “rolled back” after an upgrade/patch – there has to space on the stick to hold this roll back data.

Of course, that might lead to say – “ah, you see VMware are telling fibs”… But IF you recall the original argument/case for a small hypervisor – is to do with its vulnerability/weakness in terms of performance, patching and security. The small the hypervisor is the less vunerable it is. Unfortunately, this view of the hypervisor is decidedly NOT shared by Microsoft. Microsoft firmly believe the virtualization layer should live inside the operating system. It’s an ideology that many Microsoft bloggers public subscribe to and endorse. I don’t.

I subscribe to the VMware ideology – that the hypervisor should be superslim. With APIs like vStorage/vNetwork that allow third parties like EMC, NetApp and Cisco to “hook” into. Without bloating out the hypervisor with 3rd party unchecked code, that responble for so much instability in the Microsoft platform. If you don’t believe in the VMware ideology, what you believe in the same vulnerabilities and patch management that bedevils a vanilla operating system like Windows, Linux, Solaris and Netware…

Update:

I actually wrote this post early in the morning when I couldn’t sleep (does that show?) and this morning I’ve got something add. And its this. And it’s not going to be pretty. IF Microsoft will persist on patiently avioding the ftechncial acts on their blogs in effort to make their product look as good as/better than VMware. I think we can discount this kind claptrap about MS not being free to present their products at next weeks VMworld, as the unmitigate bullshit that it is… (Are you liking this Stu)

This entry was posted on Friday, August 28th, 2009 at 1:27 am and is filed under ESX. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.