Generally, when the words VMware and Hyper-V appear in the same article, it’s not due to love. Most often, VMware is either deriding Microsoft’s virtualization efforts or a blogger is comparing/contrasting the platforms, which I. myself, have been known to do. VMware has long stated that they provide management support only for their own products because that’s what their customers want.
Apparently, their customers are changing their minds. Recently, VMware made available a technical preview of a product called VMware XVP Manager and Converter. VMware indicates that XVP provides basic virtualization management capabilities for “non-vSphere hypervisor platforms” which include:
- Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 (64-bit) with Hyper-V role enabled
- Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 R2 with Hyper-V role enabled
This tool also streamlines the process of migrating virtual machines from Hyper-V to vSphere. Until I sit down and test the product, I’m not sure how easily it enables the reverse process; however, I would not expect it to be seamless in that direction. I plan to spend some quality time with the tool and, once I do so, will come back and share my findings.