Microsoft to run VMware on Azure, on bare metal. Repeat. Microsoft to run VMware on Azure.

Microsoft is to offer "the full VMware stack on Azure hardware" with the help of an as-yet-unnamed VMware partner. Redmond's announcement stated that the company has commenced a preview of "a bare-metal solution … co-located with other Azure services" and "in partnership with premier VMware-certified partners". Sources tell …

[Anonymous Coward]

VMWare will eventually be the big looser in this as once on either AWS or Azure customers will realise they simply don't need VMWare.

That said, at least VMWare admins might have a grace period to learn modern cloud technology and stay relevant.

[Anonymous Coward]

Rather the reverse, I'm afraid. Microsoft keeps creating products {Hyper-V Server, System Center, PowerShell, Docker, bash, Linux on Windows, ...} that each of which is supposed to be a VMware killer and hasn't yet succeeded with any. My experience with both companies start when VMware was tiny, heck in first betas. Also, during this period, Microsoft iterated through VirtualPC, Virtual Server, and Hyper-V Server/Server 2008+, also doing all the betas. Advantage VMware each time.

Now add in containers and Kubernettes to the VMware equation, I know who I'd put my money on for the forseeable future. It isn't Microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft keeps creating products {Hyper-V Server, System Center, PowerShell, Docker, bash, Linux on Windows, ...} that each of which is supposed to be a VMware killer and hasn't yet succeeded with any."

Last time I saw figures, Hyper-v had a 30% market share of on premises and growing, and Microsoft's cloud revenue run rate overtook AWS two quarters ago, so I think it's safe to say that it is a Vmware killer. There is little reason to use Vmware in greenfield. Hyper-v has similar features and performance but is completely free!

Almost every enterprise that has Windows uses system centre.

Even vmware moved from a bash type shell to the more secure and powerful option of Powershell

Docker, bash and Linux are not Microsoft product creations, but now you can run them on a modern hybrid micro kernel...

And you obviously haven't seen Microsoft's share price!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Now add in containers and Kubernettes to the VMware equation, I know who I'd put my money on for the forseeable future. It isn't Microsoft."

I think you and OP are both right. I agree with you in reference to your point that Microsoft is irrelevant to this conversation. Yeah, VMs are not cloud, but why would you want MSFT's best efforts when you can use AWS or Google. Still though, if you are using Kubernetes on say GCP, who cares if the underlying VM is VMware or KVM or whatever as long as the cluster doesn't go down... which is not your problem with IaaS. Cloud provider has the SLA, then I would want whatever the lowest cost option is for VM.

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the rub. This is a one way move. A company take their onsite vmware environment and move it to azure.

There is literally only one winner here. and it's not vmware simply because that company are migrating away from vmware. Oh, and whilst they're there they will use Azure, realise it's power and continue to use it more and more. That's just more money for microsoft.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re:

Anonymous coward is right. if microsoft plans to pull (pardon the language) this sh*t off Vmware needs to read the reg.

[Captain DaFt]

Vapid Market Talk

"adopting Azure reserved instances will save you big bucks."

Has any company, in the history of Earth, ever said otherwise about their product/services when trying to persuade you to switch?

And how often has it been true?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Vapid Market Talk

And if they refund on downtime... ?

Imagine the money you'd save!

[razorfishsl]

M$ does not share any of the pie in its eco-system

you can bet this is a stop gap measure because they have a massive hole in their plans

[Anonymous Coward]

True, if you think about it, there has not been a single "partner" that MSFT has not eventually taken out.

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft have done well recently with losing their "not invented here" attitude.

Who'd had thought.. 40% Linux, and now this.

Actually using your own product to provide a service means you can't spit the dogfood out, you have to swallow it.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Microsoft have done well recently with losing their "not invented here" attitude."

They haven't lost that attitude. Now they are basically saying that they'll support stuff they can't stand because you are going to go to AWS or GCP if they don't do it... and may anyway.

[teknopaul]

great idea

You sign up for that Microsoft can tell you exactly when its time to migrate off VMware.

[Anonymous Coward]

Playing catch up ?

You can do this on the IBM cloud already... Why wait until next year ?

[kryptylomese]

ProxMox is better than VMware!

It is more performant, flexible, extensible, and has much better storage options!

It is much less expensive and requires less resources (No need for VCentre)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: ProxMox is better than VMware!

"It is more performant"

That seems rather unlikely seeing as it's basically KVM and numerous benchmarks show that both Hyper-v Server and VSphere outperform it. And Hyper-v server is completely free with all features enabled.

[kryptylomese]

Re: ProxMox is better than VMware!

Please link your benchmark results for 2017 on latest Linux kernel?

[Hans 1]

Re: ProxMox is better than VMware!

KVM has been blessed with great performance improvements, lately ... besides, when it comes to supported guest OS', HyperV is a nightmare. Besides, support, how should I put it ... hm, MS support sucks. Their HyperV partners do not really cut it. Anytime you come and try to have a problem understood, you have to start teaching basics computing concepts to an utter n00b, because, well, when you have a problem that is not referenced on Google it certainly is not on the support bloke's checklist. Second line knows a subset of the checklists by heart ... and third line is reserved for enterprise customers ... imho.

Oh, I never managed to get anybody knowledgeable on their end ... and i have tried ...

[SVV]

And so it starts...

I wondered when people would start running virtual servers inside containers inside microservices inside actual hardware..... Just beware the event horizon of architectural stupidity and you'll be fine....

[Martin Summers]

All brilliant, until your Internet connection goes down and the diverse route backup connection isn't as diverse as you thought it was.

All we need now is AI to do the work of your company in the cloud and you can do away with employees entirely so it won't matter. Heck it could be an improvement for some!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not like most people work on the same network as the data center anyway. If the internet/WAN connections (plural) are all lost, the concern is making it to the bomb shelter.

[Anonymous Coward]

Configuration not supported

https://blog.cloud.vmware.com/s/content/a1y6A000000aFlgQAE/vmware-the-platform-of-choice-in-the-cloud