VMware has released version 1.0 of its vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager, an optional module which is capable of managing the Microsoft Hyper-V hypervisor from vCenter. While vCenter markets the product as a Multi-Hypervisor product this version clearly targets Microsoft because it only supports the Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 hypervisors at this time. It’s not clear if VMware is planning to support Windows Server 2012 which contains Hyper-V 3.0 or the Xen Hypervisor any time soon.
Microsoft also provides multi-hypervisor management capabilities in its System Center Virtual Machine Manager (SCVMM) product, the major difference though is that SCVMM still needs vCenter while this plugin can directly manage Hyper-V hosts without needing an SCVMM infrastructure.
The vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager provides some functionality (management) from the vCenter XVP Manager and Converter on which virtualization.info reported in February last year. This fling, although still in Technical Preview status is still available from VMware as well but doesn’t support vSphere 5 yet.
The Multi-Hypervisor Manager provides the following functionality:
- Add, remove, connect, disconnect and view host configuration
- VM provisioning
- Power operations on hosts and VMs
- VM settings management
- Connect and disconnect DVD,CD-ROM and floppy drives and images
- vCenter Server authorization integration
- Discovery of pre-existing VMs
The vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager module consists of a server component and a client component. The client component is a plug-in to the VMware vSphere Client. The vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager server is a Windows installable package, which deploys the VMware vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager service, so if you use the Linux-based virtual applicance as a vCenter Server you need to deploy a Windows Server on which you can install the Multi-Hypervisor Manager service. The plug-in is not supported for the web client though.
You can install the vCenter Multi-Hypervisor Manager when you have licensed vCenter Server Standard Edition, the product is not available for the Essentials edition. More information is available in the release notes.