Vendors Who Don't Realize Virtualization Is Here To Stay

Update: Symantec has altered their support documentation so that VMotion isn’t unsupported anymore. That’s a good move. As you read the rest of this post keep that in mind.

I second the vinternals commentary on Symantec. The security software vendor joins the ranks of the clueless with their wonderful support document:

Question/Issue:
Is ESX server VMotion supported with SAV and SEP?

Solution:
Symantec does not support ESX server VMotion at this time.

Vendors are shameless. They charge you a ton for support, then they’ll do whatever they can to point the finger at somebody else when you call.  It’s one thing to put a disclaimer in for performance issues. Virtualization sometimes exposes weird performance issues, and if it’s a performance issue you’re having you might need to do some work to troubleshoot it on your own if it isn’t a blatant, completely reproduceable problem with the vendor’s software (like CPU-sucking spin locks).

It’s another thing to say that their software isn’t supported at all, or to say that a problem must be reproduced on physical hardware. Most of the problems I’ve ever called a vendor about are explicit functionality problems (bugs).  Physical hardware, virtual hardware, it doesn’t matter: their software just doesn’t do what it’s supposed to.  A vendor’s support staff should be competent enough, and professional enough, to sort out a bug report from a performance problem and act accordingly.

Oracle doesn’t support anything in VMs (as per an Oracle employee last week to me). Lyris doesn’t support anything in VMs (last time I checked, a few months ago). Symantec doesn’t support anything in VMs (technically they said VMotion, but for an enterprise VMotion goes hand in hand with VMs). What other vendors are as clueless as these three? I think I’m going to start making a list.