VMware

With VMware vSphere 5, VMware has raised the bar again, with improvements to existing features such as 32-way vSMP and increased I/O performance and additions of brand new, industry-first capabilities such as Profile Driven Storage, Storage DRS and vSphere Auto Deploy that competing solutions just cannot match. Independent industry experts agree that vSphere 4 had “ at least a 5 year pure technology lead” over competing virtualization platforms and with the release of vSphere 5, that gap widens even further.

Learn more about how VMware vSphere 5 is - and will continue to be – the best platform for IT and the best choice for building cloud infrastructures.

Get Flexibility and Choice with a Broad Ecosystem of Partners

VMware’s virtualization platform provides customers with the most choice and flexibility in selecting hardware and application components that best suit their needs. VMware works closely with our large partner ecosystem (software vendors, system OEMs and peripheral manufacturers) to certify their products with the VMware vSphere platform—usually delivering certification when those products are first released.

In addition, VMware also follows a workload-agnostic approach with no “preferred” workload, delivering uniform high performance across all virtualized applications, making it possible to have one platform instead of multiple silos.

 

Most Comprehensive Guest OS Support

vSphere supports far more guest operating systems than any other x86 bare-metal virtualization platform, protecting customers’ existing investments and preserving flexibility for future business/IT decisions.

VMware vSphere features a unique multimode hypervisor design enabling support of the broadest combination of processor features and guest operating systems.  vSphere makes full use of virtualization hardware assist features found in the latest processors such as AMD-V and RVI from AMD and VT-x and EPT from Intel, but it still supports high performance on older processors without those features.  Similarly, vSphere supports both unmodified 32- and 64-bit guest operating systems and guests with industry standard paravirtualization features with optimal performance.  In contrast, hypervisors from other vendors require guest operating systems to be modified with “enlightenments” or paravirtualization for good performance.

VMware vSphere supports all guest operating systems in a consistent, unbiased manner. For example, VMware vSphere supports 32-way virtual SMP for any supported guest OS (unless the guest’s SMP support on a physical machine is for fewer CPUs, like Windows XP and Vista, which are 2-way only). In contrast, Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V supports 4-way vSMP on Windows Server 2008 and Windows 7 guests only. Most other guests on Hyper-V R2 will be limited to one or two virtual CPUs.

See the VMware Guest Operating System Installation Guide for full details on guest support.

Benefit from broad hardware support

VMware works closely with system OEMs and peripheral manufacturers to certify VMware vSphere with their hardware—usually delivering certification on or shortly after those products are first released. See the VMware Certified Compatibility Guides for full details on hardware and device support.

While other virtualization platform vendors may claim they do not need a hardware compatibility list because they use generic general purpose operating system drivers, this claim is not accurate. For instance, Citrix XenServer has a hardware compatibility list (HCL), and it is much smaller than VMware’s. Microsoft achieves broad hardware support because they use the same Windows Server 2008 drivers for Hyper-V deployments. But, those Windows drivers have traditionally been the major root cause of Windows instabilities, so there is a clear trade-off with reliability.

Rich Ecosystem of VMware Partners

Over 2,500 apps developed by over 1400 independent software vendors explicitly support the vSphere platform and an overwhelming majority of enterprise management tools integrate with vSphere/vCenter, including solutions from these leading vendors:

VMware Partner Support Programs

VMware supports deep integration of the VMware vSphere platform with third party management tools and solutions through APIs and SDK products aimed at different developer communities and target platforms. VMware's technology partners have access to VMware engineering resources and product source code to support deeply integrated VMware vSphere extensions.

VMware’s APIs and SDKs expose every control, performance and monitoring feature offered by VMware vCenter Server so third parties can build in support for every aspect of VMware vSphere, including vMotion, DRS and HA. This has led to broad industry support for management integration with VMware vSphere. Each API/SDK is intended for different developer communities and target platforms.

  • VMware vSphere SDK
  • VMware CIM APIs
  • VI Perl Toolkit
  • VMware OVF Tool
  • VMware vSphere PowerCLI Documentation
  • Virtual Disk Development Kit
  • VMware Guest SDK

VMware offers in-depth VMware SDK and API technical resources to developers.

Over 1300 member organizations in VMware's Technology Alliance Partner Program offer a wide range of products, solutions, training, consulting and services to VMware Infrastructure users. VMware's Technology Alliance Partners have been essential to the rapid adoption of VMware vSphere worldwide.