VMware or Microsoft? What does Availability mean in YOUR Cloud?

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Keith Mayer brings us the next post in out VMware of Microsoft virtualization series. here is an excerpt -

When evaluating public and hybrid cloud services, carefully inspecting a cloud-provider’s Service Level Agreement (SLA) is an important step in understanding the level of availability you can expect. Of course, we all want our applications and VMs to be as close to 100% available as possible, and at an initial glance, the SLA’s of many cloud-providers look deceptively similar. When diving into the details of cloud-provider SLA’s, important differences can surface that may impact availability and cost-effectiveness of your deployed applications and VM’s in the cloud.

Comparing Cloud-Provider SLA's

In this article, we’ll compare key differences between the Service Level Agreements for Microsoft Windows Azure Infrastructure Services and the recently announced VMware vCloud Hybrid Service ( vCHS ) based on current public information provided in the SLA's for both cloud-providers as of the publication date of this article. You can review the specific details of each SLA by following the links provided in this article.

Be sure to thoroughly review the SLA's from cloud-providers when deciding on the solution most appropriate for your applications, by asking these questions:

  • What Level of Availability is Guaranteed?
  • How is "Availability" Measured?
  • What is Excluded from SLA Guarantees?
What Level of Availability is Guaranteed?

VMware SLA … The VMware SLA for vCHS guarantees 99.9% availability for virtual machines deployed on it’s Virtual Private Cloud (VPS) shared cloud infrastructure offering. 99.95% availability guarantees are only offered for the vCHS Dedicated Cloud premium offering, which is currently priced at 2.5x – 3x the cost of VPS. Both offerings require an upfront capacity commitment regardless of whether you are actually consuming all of the resources to which you’ve subscribed.

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VMware or Microsoft? What does Availability mean in YOUR Cloud?

-Cheers!