VMware's ESXi hypervisor is now free largely in response to Microsoft's Hyper-V hypervisor, which debuted at the nearly free price of $28. However, free hypervisors do not mean free virtualization.
This note looks at the costs per virtual machine (VM) of virtualization using different virtualization products on the same hardware. It includes:
- How VM "density" (consolidation ratio) can lower the total cost per VM of a virtualization solution.
- How the management features which VMware touts as differentiators, such as VMotion, require the highest priced VMware licensing.
- How the same example used to show total cost per VM differential between Microsoft and VMware can also be used to compare other solutions such as the Xen-based Virtual Iron.
The hardware scenario used for comparison is the same as what is employed by VMware to argue that VMware is a better per VM cost value than Hyper-V. This advantage is not consistently true in all cases.