Hyper-V – It’s good enough…right?

Microsoft’s Hyper-V is continuing to make a splash in the virtual pool.  The 2012 release is leaps ahead of the 2008 release in function, stability and lets face it - cost.  We all know that VMware is the king today; it provides us with that five 9’s when deployed with recommended hardware configurations.  The downside is those five 9’s come with expensive software licensing.  Now using Hyper-V is as simple as turning on a role inside the server, even a junior admin can do that and have a virtual environment.

Of course the environment might not be five 9’s, more like two or three 9’s but that is good enough for most companies right?  Some managers or accounting folks would think so.  When you look at number such as 98% or 99% does it really need to be better than that?  Besides your accountants and managers are excited with all the money save going away from VMware’s expensive licensing. 

What is often forgotten with this is the math, how long of an outage is that 1.0% or 2%?  Well respectively that is 3.65 days and 7.3 days of unplanned outages in a year.   When the percentages are put into that context is that really an outage that a company can handle?  Even at 99.9% the outage is still over eight hours.  Of course these outages could occur at different times in the year and “if” they occur on a weekend or during a light work day maybe it’s okay...but how often do unexpected outages follow our work / personal schedule?  Are you more likely to have an outage on the busiest day of the year…don’t answer that. 

So the question is with 99% uptime you have 3.65 days of unexpected downtime verses VMware with 99.999% or 5.2 minutes of unexpected downtime.  Yes it costs more but maybe these are the number to share with the people that make the financial decisions before someone says, “it’s good enough…”

My visit to VMware HQ & Balance…

Recently I had the opportunity to visit VMware HQ and engage with multiple people including Pat Gelsinger (CEO).  The experience was incredible and I cannot thank VMware enough for giving me the opportunity to visit.  One piece that I really wanted to share was the VMware campus / lifestyle.  I often talk to my students about balance between life, work and technology.  The proper balance gives us personal and professional success, healthy lifestyles and true happiness.  This is a tough skill to master from an individual perspective and even harder from a corporate standard.

VMware is not simply a “green” company it is a corporate culture.    VMware is based on 100 acres of plush land that is alive.  It is very evident as soon as you arrive that this is not VMware’s buildings with a little bit of nature added.  Looking at the overhead pictures there is more nature on campus than VMware.  As you move through the campus you see and feel the openness and nature (even with a little rain).  We visited a small river that flows in the middle of the campus and contains ducks and the VMware turtles (we were told they all have “names” / the conference rooms were actually named after them, they have profiles on the internal SocialCast site, but no Twitter accounts - yet). 

When you visit any of the buildings you look around you will find recycled material for everything from the carpet and floors to the ceiling tiles and woodwork.  The atmosphere is open and inviting and encourages you to look beyond the traditional limitations.  The walls are not walls but windows allowing nature and ideas to come in.   Of course onsite there are multiple gyms and other amenities for staff but as was told to us by our guide outdoor walking meetings tend to be very popular. 

VMware corporate has a balance with nature and they have been able to ensure this balance extends to the staff there.  They have provided an environment where staff is encouraged to take that deep breath / walk your dog (yes dogs are allowed on campus) and innovate.  VMware is one of the leaders in technology, not because they have armies of people in cubicles coding but because they have balance.  From that comes the innovations that have changed the world of IT.

Brian