back to article VMware refuses to support its wares running in Azure

VMware has responded to Microsoft's plan to run its stack in Azure, by saying customers who choose that option will have to forego support. “This offering has been developed independent of VMware, and is neither certified nor supported by VMware,” wrote Virtzilla's senior veep for product development and cloud services Ajay …

  1. Starace
    Alert

    Unlikely to be worse than a native VMware solution

    Given the overpriced buggy shite that VMware call a product I can't see the Azure flavour actually being any worse.

    1. RegHandle0010

      Re: Unlikely to be worse than a native VMware solution

      Seriously? How much does Microsoft pay you?

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Unlikely to be worse than a native VMware solution

      vSphere management interface might be a buggy, steaming heap, but the ESXi itself is usually pretty rock solid.

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Azure runs rather more VMs in the public cloud than Vmware ever did - I'm sure Microsoft will cope...

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "Seriously? How much does Microsoft pay you?"

    Obviously you haven't seen how many security holes and fix patches you need when you run VSphere...

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Newish employee, so anon.

      Compared to who's mythical product with no security holes or patches?

      Microsoft? https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-us/security-guidance/summary

      Redhat? https://access.redhat.com/security/security-updates/#/cve

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        "Compared to who's mythical product with no security holes or patches?"

        Hyper-V Server at least has had an order of magnitude fewer holes and fixes than vSphere

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          > as had an order of magnitude fewer holes and fixes than vSphere

          Probably true, but then with a much smaller customer base especially of those running it stand-alone, it's likely that there are less problems found, rather than their being less bugs.

          Also don't forget the rest of the manage infrastructure such as System Center. Or don't you think they are part of the attack surface?

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "Probably true, but then with a much smaller customer base"

            Hyper-v has about 35% of on premise and then of course Azure so likely the total is similar. Certainty it's not much smaller.

            System centre is optional. You can run hyper-v under open stack for instance. And anyway system centre has had far fewer holes than say Vcentre!

        2. PAFL

          Wow. Are you part of the Trump administration also? This is the worst fake news. I'd take vSphere over Windoze all day. And do.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            "I'd take vSphere over Windoze all day. And do."

            More the mug you then. If you use Hyper-V Server it's completely free with all features enabled.

            And if you need to License Windows Server VMs then it's also effectively free to run Hyper-V under Windows Server.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's turtles all the way down

    I run with Azure cloud running VMWare where I use Hyper-V to start up VirtualBox so I can run Windows7 to start up XP Mode to.....

  5. msknight

    Personally....

    I don't see this as a major thorn in the side for anyone choosing Microsoft. If you were going to run virtualisation in the cloud, I can't see that many cases where you'd run VMWare machines in the cloud in much more than a disaster recovery scenario. If you were putting things in the cloud, then surely the point would be to re-architect the solution to work in the cloud... rather than just shift VMWare machines to it.

    This just smells to me like a dumb play by VMWare and AWS... of course, I'm always open to more information and other points of view that educate me further.

  6. Bangem

    dont use our products as intended

    Taken from the first line on this page:

    https://www.vmware.com/uk/products/vsphere.html

    vSphere helps you get the best performance, availability, and efficiency from your infrastructure and applications. It’s the ideal foundation for any cloud environment.*

    *except when theres a competing product.

    I seem to recall both Cisco and HPE having a mardy at Nutanix when they validated their software themselves. The fact that software designed to run on x86 hardware, couldn't be "validated" because they'd had no input is laughable.

    I'm sure the guys at Azure built this as per best practices, along side the HCI and with N+1 in the design....

  7. PAFL

    After all the years of MSFT denying me support on VMware

    for their applications, how can people see this as anything but karma?

    MSFT -loves- to be the bully. Satya didn't change that.

    It could've worked with VMware on this (like it did with VDI) but didn't.

    Azure is a DISTANT second to AWS and its absolutely desperate to get headlines ahead of re:Invent.

    That's what this is really about. Me too! Me too!

  8. Griffo

    What about other VMWare hosters

    Apart from AWS, I'm not sure the other VSPP's out there will be that happy to hear AWS bag Microsoft if this way. Pretty much every other hoster runs an environment that hasn't been "engineered by VMWARE". Are they saying all their other hosters are running piles of shit?

  9. R3sistance

    So VMWare only support solutions they built? that is total BS, seen VMware support solutions they didn't build themselves before in multiple places.

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    "So VMWare only support solutions they built?

    No but you can't blame them for trying to pretend that they won't support a solution that's sole purpose is to help migrate to Hyper-v and Azure!

  11. Anonymous Coward
    Terminator

    Microsoft Azure VMware © in the cloud ..

    Why would VMware provide free support for Microsoft Azure VMware © in the cloud. Microsoft Azure VMware a similar strategy to Microsoft Linux ©, provide just enough usability to draw paying customers away from VMware.

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Indirect revenue goes to the back end owner.

    Who cares about VMware in the cloud (aside from VMware)? Companies who already have a lot invested in VMware-based infra. They, too, want to migrate to the cloud (because all the other lemmings say its the way to go?)

    Start with IBM's product which is basically the VMware product line already stood up for you by IBM on their bare metal. Your current admins see it as another stack and it is a no-brainer integration. However while it has moved you to a cloud, you now get to pay both IBM and VMware for the privilege. Where do you go from here? Migrate to the IBM Cloud? Migrate to a cloud-independent solution? Who knows; neither VMware nor IBM have a well charted course beyond this point.

    VMware on AWS is again the same product you already know, but stood up in an account owned by VMware on AWS and offered as a managed service. So you get to pay VMware to manage your new stacks. Of course you are still paying your admins to run your current stacks and you now get to set up an AWS account for all the other services you'll want to incorporate into your apps. And that's exactly what Amazon is expecting you'll do...along with refactoring your apps to reside in your own account shunting VMware onto the siding. Given AWS is the biggest and best, it isn't a bad path as long as you really understand what it will cost you in the long run.

    So here comes Microsoft with a plan to help you start the transition off of VMware. Less subtle than the other two, but same end goal; get your workloads and data onto their cloud. Better suited to the CIO who has already been planning to get off the sinking ship perhaps. VMware says they won't support it, but let's guess who does? Microsoft. They have been growing their resources to handle exactly this kind of work and clearly feel ready to handle it. Maybe it's best to make a support deal with MSFT during the negotiation stage, take the discounts offered, and start the migration.

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