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VMware is Not the Novell of Virtualization

The old saying that history repeats itself does indeed manifest itself in the IT realm. Recently, I read Brandon Riley's Virtual Insanity post where he asks: Is VMware the Novell of Virtualization?

Virtual Insanity is a blog I read frequently. Regular contributors include a number of VMware and EMC employees. Now that the transparency topic is out of the way, let's talk about the whole idea that VMware is acting like Novell years ago when NetWare was pitted against Windows NT. A consultant working with me back in the mid 1990s when I was mulling going to Windows NT for file servers asked me, "Why would you replace your file server with an inferior product?"

That was so true then, technically speaking. NetWare 3 and 4 back in the day offered file server functionality that still to this day is not matched by the Microsoft offering. Don't believe me? Look up the NetWare flag command and see if you can do all of that with a Windows file system.

When it comes to virtualization, will Hyper-V or some other virutalization platform supercede VMware whom currently has the superior product? My opinion is that this will not be the case.

VMware innovates at a rate not seen by the fallen hero in NetWare and other products who may have "lost" the Microsoft battle. I will concede that innovation isn't enough, but I see the difference-maker is the greater ecosystem of infrastructure technologies which are moving at this same rate. Whether this be cloud solutions, virtual desktops, server virtualization or virtualized applications; the entire catalog becomes solutions that make technology decisions easy for administrators. Couple the superior technology with that decision, and I think the case is made for VMware to not have a similar fate as Novell.

Where are you on the fate of VMware and a sense for the history of NetWare? Share your comments here.

Posted by Rick Vanover on 08/11/2010 at 8:07 PM


Reader Comments:

Mon, Aug 30, 2010

VMWare FTW!

Sat, Aug 14, 2010 paolo Belgium

Rick, I like the comparison but I agree with Steve: If Vmware is the new Novell, his challenger is coming from Linux alternatives, not from Microsoft.

Fri, Aug 13, 2010 Rick Vanover http://rickatron.us

@Carlo: Good point with EMC big brother coaching, but a lot of ways EMC wants VMware to be seen as a standalone company but we know that is not the case.

@John: I should have called it the "NetWare" and not the "Novell" -> Good point relating to current news.

I do think it is clearly different this time around. How much, it remains to be seen for sure.

Fri, Aug 13, 2010 Steve Birchfield Tampa, FL

Novell decided at one point to try and go toe to toe with MS and didn't focus on what they did best but rather what Microsoft was trying to do. Case in point, Novell's Windows server management tool was far superior to the standard Microsoft tools available at the time. It managed Novell and Microsoft servers in one console and had tons of features an admin would want. And if they had given that tool away for free I really think that they could have hurt Microsoft in the server market. But instead Novell tried to sell it and it never took off. Novell could have given that tool away and had admins using the Novell tools to manage all of their servers while still profiting from the server sales. Microsoft on the other hand, gave you the management tools and clients to manage both environments for free. VMware seems to understand that it needs to worry about what THEY are doing and by innovating technologies and allowing integration of vendors tools along with their own tools they are letting MS play catchup to them. They have free product offerings to allow people to virtualize and get familiar with their products. They aren't drawing a line in the sand and daring MS to cross it but rather they are moving ahead and not allowing MS to keep up with them. I think Microsoft will eventually catch up to VMware in terms of product features but I think that VMware will not fall out of the virtualization lead for quite some time.

Fri, Aug 13, 2010 George Streeter

I have to agree. Citrix and Novell both were unable to see the direction IT was headed. To date VMware has not had that same issue and has continued to be leaders in developing technologies. The only thing that would change this is a change of leadership at the top. then all bets are off.

Fri, Aug 13, 2010

Novell had great technology however poor marketing and direction. They didn't know what they wanted to be when they grew up. VMware has the backing of EMC and VMware appears to know who they are and where they are going.

Fri, Aug 13, 2010 Tim Wessels

Well, it is interesting to note that both VMware and NetWare share certain historical similarities. NetWare pioneered file serving and VMware pioneered virtualization. Both held a near monopoly in their respective markets. Both matured their product offerings and attempted to stay ahead of the curve. Both enjoyed wide spread third party support. The bad news is Novell failed to appreciate the importance of having a usable GUI on NetWare and it failed to change its dependence on IPX/SPX for running its NetWare Core Protocols (NCP) until it was too late. VMware is criticized for its high licensing fees, which has allowed Microsoft and Citrix to make some headway in the virtualization market. The biggest problem I see for VMware is they don't play in public clouds to any great degree. Amazon, Microsoft, RackSpace don't use any VMware technology in their public cloud infrastructure. The future of IT is going to be based on the use of public clouds. Private clouds are not here to stay and unless VMware figures that out soon, they will find themselves on the outside looking in.

Thu, Aug 12, 2010 John Stetic http://www.twitter.com/jstetic

What's interesting about this post is that VMware and Novell just announced a new partnership that gives users the ability to run a great Linux OS (SUSE), on a great virtual infrastructure (vSphere) all in one package. I think it's time we stop thinking that Novell is just about NetWare; take a look if your at VMworld - they do ALOT more these days. For transparency - I work at Novell ;)

Thu, Aug 12, 2010 Carlo Costanzo VMwareInfo.com

Rick, I also think it is very different this time around. I have read quite a few of these Novell/VMware comparisons and none of them seem to build a link to EMC. I think people are overlooking the fact that EMC owns VMware and EMC storage runs much of these Virtualization initiatives. Had Novell owned as much of the DESKTOP market, I suspect the server OS landscape would be quite different now. Having two pieces of the puzzle in my opinion helped Microsoft win the battles of the 90s.

Thu, Aug 12, 2010 Andy Kitzke http://www.gamersanon.com

I think Guy's original point was based around the idea that for a large portion of businesses, the next step innovations and features wouldn't really have a huge impact. So the cheapest, most readily available virtualization platform would rule the land. I do however have to disagree with Guy and agree with you Rick in that if VMware continues to innovate and add features, I don't think they will go away anytime soon.

Thu, Aug 12, 2010 Rick Vanover http://rickatron.us

Brandon: Thanks for piping up here! OK, glad to know where you were on the VMware transparency chart."Just one of those things" in the blogosphere we need to hammer out.

Cheers!

Thu, Aug 12, 2010 Steve West Charlotte NC

Here's a bit of irony. I migrated off VMWare ESX onto Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server XEN. ESX is a great product but I absolutely love all the additional functionality I get with SLES, plus it's cheaper. I'm not big on brand names, but I am big on total costs. I hear Walmart wants Chinese manufacturers. Well, for me, I want open source manufacturers, and probably for a lot of the same reasons as Walmart. So I'm not against VMWare, but Microsoft is definitely OUT! Linux is IN! I think Microsoft will survive for a long time, just like cobal.

Wed, Aug 11, 2010 Brandon Riley

Rickatron: We're on the same page. For the record, my only affiliation with VMware is as a customer. By the way, I enjoy the podcast!

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