This week another vendor, Simplivity, announced that it is going to support KVM and OpenStack… And the list of VSA/hyper-converged vendors supporting KVM/OpenStack is growing very rapidly indeed!
This is an interesting trend and it is worth spending a few words on it. One aspect that most intrigues me is how all the vendors are pushing OpenStack… but it doesn’t make sense to me.
What are we talking about?
KVM is an open source alternative to VMware ESXi and Microsoft Hyper-V. It doesn’t have the same level of efficiency nor the features but it works and all the basic functionalities are available. For some customers (or for specific workloads) it could be a cheaper and good-enough option. The biggest difference that I see between KVM and ESXi (or Hyper-V up to a certain level) is in the management. In fact, it’s not only about the Hypervisor features but also about how they can be leveraged. The management console (like vCenter), the tool which is used on a daily basis, is a vivid example. And also automation and orchestration suites make a big difference in terms of TCO when it comes to larger environments.
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