Like most others out there, I have recently started hearing the ESX/VMware vs Hyper-V/Microsoft questions popping up throughout my day. While I have little experience with Hyper-V, R2 certainly brings an impressive amount of features and several compelling arguments for it’s use over VMware’s product offerings. If you are a small to medium sized shop running only Windows servers with minimal workloads, then you probably need to give Hyper-V a hard look. That being said, I personally still think that vSphere is THE elite solution for virtualization in the enterprise, and will continue to be for the next 3-5 years. The giant that is Microsoft will continue to invest in their hyper-visor offering, and I think we all expect it will compete feature for feature with ESX/vCenter at some point.
I have recently read some excellent articles and white papers discussing the pros and cons of each. I have a feeling I personally will need to similar comparisons some time in the near future, and will rely on a few of these as references.
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/datacenter/?p=1820
http://ctistrategy.com/2009/08/18/vmware-vsphere-microsoft-hyperv-whitepaper/
http://www.zdnetasia.com/techguide/storage/0,39045058,62060189,00.htm
It is important to consider all of the factors listed in these articles when deciding which technology is right for you. The Microsoft vs VMware battle has been going on for quite some time (http://www.rtfm-ed.co.uk/2008/07/22/the-microsoft-vs-vmware-fud-wars-let-battle-commence/) and probably will continue on for the foreseeable future.
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