5 ms·

If they invested instead a mere Billion into optimizing a fork of e.g. QEMU they would destroy VMware in performance.

VWWHFSfQ 4y ago
right but they wouldn't be able to own qemu. that's what they want
mbreese 4y ago
This isn’t about the hypervisor. This is about the enterprise sales. A bank isn’t going to run their data center on qemu, regardless of the performance. They are going to go with the company that can sell them support contracts with dedicated engineers to answer the phone.
- wyldfire 4y ago
  > They are going to go with the company that can sell them support contracts with dedicated engineers to answer the phone. There's no reason the company selling them support couldn't be providing support for QEMU btw. If it met their needs otherwise I'm sure they'd consider it.
- mountainriver 4y ago
  Yup as a former employee I can confirm this is not about the hypervisor although vmw has a good hypervisor, it’s about everything auxiliary to that
- bluGill 4y ago
  Big companies are starting to learn that free open source can be supported in house, in some cases it is even cheaper, but in others the flexibility of being in control of when a much needed by only you feature is developed is a big deal. Open source also is never acquired and the price jacked up to beyond the worth but they are forced to pay the price anyway because they can't get off before their license expires.
  - hotpotamus 4y ago
    I work for a small company and they seem to have figured this out 20 years ago. I've been tasked with supporting the network and I've got to say that all the fancy (or not) proprietary firewalls all seem like a pick your own poison of cost/support issues, and they all go end of life eventually but the network needs to keep running. We also use PFSense in a few places and I think the feeling among the operations team (2.5 of us) is that we'd like to just use that in future.
    - BVCommander 4y ago
      I use PFSense and Snort at home and it's perfectly fine for the price I paid for it, but enterprise grade it ain't. I wouldn't use it to protect a network worth more than my beer budget. I don't know what business you're in and maybe after a nightly tape backup there's nothing important for you to lose. Frankly that's most small businesses. But if you've got real trade secrets get a proper IDS/IPS before you regret it.
      - hotpotamus 4y ago
        Sure, the networking thing is a part time job for all of us, and there's even been some talk of bringing in professional services to look over it a bit. But my question is, what would we get? The whole IDS/IPS/WAF industry seems pretty much dripping in snakeoil. It seems like Cisco was once the king, but has lost a lot of respect. Palo Alto seems to be the current fashion but unless you have a serious alcohol problem, it's going to exceed your beer budget. I worked with Imperva and Alert Logic back in the day and no one ever seemed too impressed with them. Then there's SonicWall which seems reviled and Fortigate which seems like the reasonable budget option. I'm sure there's tons others I'm not even aware of.
        thedougd 4y ago
        VMware :)
  - sbarre 4y ago
mkl 4y ago
At the cost of giving away their billion dollars of R&D to their competition - QEMU is GPL licensed.
- sleepydog 4y ago
  It works both ways —- they get their competitors’ R&D too. Plenty of companies seem to be OK with using GPL2-licensed Linux, why wouldn’t qemu be the same?
perlgeek 4y ago
It's not merely about the performance, it's about the management layer on top, support contracts, enterprise sales etc.

right but they wouldn't be able to own qemu. that's what they want

This isn’t about the hypervisor. This is about the enterprise sales. A bank isn’t going to run their data center on qemu, regardless of the performance. They are going to go with the company that can sell them support contracts with dedicated engineers to answer the phone.

wyldfire 4y ago
> They are going to go with the company that can sell them support contracts with dedicated engineers to answer the phone. There's no reason the company selling them support couldn't be providing support for QEMU btw. If it met their needs otherwise I'm sure they'd consider it.
mountainriver 4y ago
Yup as a former employee I can confirm this is not about the hypervisor although vmw has a good hypervisor, it’s about everything auxiliary to that
bluGill 4y ago
Big companies are starting to learn that free open source can be supported in house, in some cases it is even cheaper, but in others the flexibility of being in control of when a much needed by only you feature is developed is a big deal. Open source also is never acquired and the price jacked up to beyond the worth but they are forced to pay the price anyway because they can't get off before their license expires.
- hotpotamus 4y ago
  I work for a small company and they seem to have figured this out 20 years ago. I've been tasked with supporting the network and I've got to say that all the fancy (or not) proprietary firewalls all seem like a pick your own poison of cost/support issues, and they all go end of life eventually but the network needs to keep running. We also use PFSense in a few places and I think the feeling among the operations team (2.5 of us) is that we'd like to just use that in future.
  - BVCommander 4y ago
    I use PFSense and Snort at home and it's perfectly fine for the price I paid for it, but enterprise grade it ain't. I wouldn't use it to protect a network worth more than my beer budget. I don't know what business you're in and maybe after a nightly tape backup there's nothing important for you to lose. Frankly that's most small businesses. But if you've got real trade secrets get a proper IDS/IPS before you regret it.
    - hotpotamus 4y ago
      Sure, the networking thing is a part time job for all of us, and there's even been some talk of bringing in professional services to look over it a bit. But my question is, what would we get? The whole IDS/IPS/WAF industry seems pretty much dripping in snakeoil. It seems like Cisco was once the king, but has lost a lot of respect. Palo Alto seems to be the current fashion but unless you have a serious alcohol problem, it's going to exceed your beer budget. I worked with Imperva and Alert Logic back in the day and no one ever seemed too impressed with them. Then there's SonicWall which seems reviled and Fortigate which seems like the reasonable budget option. I'm sure there's tons others I'm not even aware of.
      - thedougd 4y ago
        VMware :)
- sbarre 4y ago

mkl 4y ago

At the cost of giving away their billion dollars of R&D to their competition - QEMU is GPL licensed.

sleepydog 4y ago
It works both ways —- they get their competitors’ R&D too. Plenty of companies seem to be OK with using GPL2-licensed Linux, why wouldn’t qemu be the same?

perlgeek 4y ago

It's not merely about the performance, it's about the management layer on top, support contracts, enterprise sales etc.