Like the Red Sox vs. Yankees and Hatfields vs. McCoys, VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V is a natural rivalry, with both vendors manipulating their licensing and pricing to gain the upper hand and more market share.

Despite publicly available licensing and pricing data for vSphere and Hyper-V, knowing which hypervisor is a better value for your data center is not always clear cut. List prices tell only part of the story, because both vendors negotiate price discounts with customers to edge out the competition. For those interested in switching, there are often unanticipated and underlying operational costs associated with replacing a hypervisor. And, with organization and IT departments shifting their gaze to the cloud, VMware vs. Hyper-V comparisons should now include private-cloud management, according to experts.

Whether your IT department is exploring new hypervisor options or your CIO simply want to know if organization is getting the most bang for its buck, we’ve got you covered. The following VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V pricing and licensing resources will help bring these issues into focus.

VMware vSphere vs. Microsoft Hyper-V: Which is cheaper?

The long-running narrative is that Hyper-V is cheaper than vSphere, but VMware offers more advanced virtualization features. But do those statements hold up under scrutiny? Well, it depends. Check out this VMware vs. Hyper-V licensing and pricing breakdown to see how the costs and virtualization features change as a data center scales up.

Microsoft, VMware offer deep discounts to gain virtualization market share

The published vSphere and Hyper-V list prices don’t often translate into real-world costs for organizations. Both vendors negotiate enterprise agreements and offer package deals to gain virtualization market share. For example, VMware is known to throw in View and management products to sweeten the deal. And Microsoft will dramatically slash the price for Hyper-V to gain a foothold in a data center.

VMware vs. Microsoft: Cloud management is the new battlefield

The private-cloud model makes hypervisor price and features comparisons nearly irrelevant. Private clouds require such a broad-based buy-in to a vendor’s strategy that experts say this emerging market is the true VMware vs. Microsoft battlefield. And for an even more accurate view of this competition, look at the big picture, which includes how these offerings integrate with public clouds.

Are Hyper-V savings worth the cost of a VMware rip and replace?

Even a drastic reduction in licensing costs won’t entice some IT shops to switch hypervisors.Removing the VMware technology at the heart of many data centers would require new training, monitoring tools, backup strategy, etc. After factoring in these changes, many IT pros don’t see the value in switching.

https://rythium.com/vmware-vs-hyper-v-licensing-pricing-expose/

https://rythium.com/

You might want to read more about our CEO Sheshagiri Anegondi (Sheshu). He is amongst the foremost Oracle License Experts globally.