If you thought the war between Microsoft and VMware was over... well, it isn't.  Of course, "the war" these days looks more like skirmishes rather than some of the bloody battles that took place only a few years ago.  So in that respect, perhaps the war is over, replaced instead with a more sporadic bar room brawl of sorts. 

Last week, Microsoft took another punch at VMware in an effort to win over its VMware vSphere users.  To do that, the Redmond giant has rolled out a new version of its Virtual Machine Converter (MVMC) tool, version 2.0 for those of you counting at home.  With the latest release, Microsoft is pitching its converter tool as a way to convert virtual machines and virtual disk formats from VMware hosts to either Microsoft Hyper-V on-premise server virtualization hosts, or perhaps more importantly, to Windows Azure cloud platforms.

What's interesting with MVMC is that it provides native support for Windows PowerShell which enables scripting and integration with data center automation workflows such as those authored and run within Microsoft System Center Orchestrator 2012 R2.  And it can also be invoked through the Windows PowerShell command-line interface.  Not a PowerShell user?  No problem.  MVMC also provides a wizard-driven GUI to facilitate virtual machine conversion.

In addition to adding support to convert VMware virtual machines (in the VMDK format) directly to virtual hard disks that can be uploaded into a Windows Azure cloud (using the VHD format), version 2.0 also supports conversion of Linux-based operating systems from VMware to Hyper-V hosts as well. 

But keep in mind, while this may be Microsoft's latest swipe at VMware, this isn't new territory, for either company.  The virtualization giant has already been there, done that as well.  Remember, it came out with vCenter Converter to do the very same thing -- move images from some other type (including Hyper-V) over to a VMware format to be used in a VMware environment.  One key difference, there are far fewer Hyper-V customers to try and move over to VMware than there are VMware customers to move over to Hyper-V.  Will a tool like this make any difference?  Probably not.  At least, it won't be the cause of people moving from one platform to another.  It just makes it a little easier to do so once they've made up their mind.   

A list of new features found in MVMC 2.0 includes:

• Converts virtual disks that are attached to a VMware virtual machine to virtual hard disks (VHDs) that can be uploaded to Windows Azure.
• Provides native Windows PowerShell capability that enables scripting and integration into IT automation workflows.
• Supports conversion and provisioning of Linux-based guest operating systems from VMware hosts to Hyper-V hosts.
• Supports conversion of offline virtual machines.
• Supports the new virtual hard disk format (VHDX) when converting and provisioning in Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2012.
• Supports conversion of virtual machines from VMware vSphere 5.5, VMware vSphere 5.1, and VMware vSphere 4.1 hosts Hyper-V virtual machines.
• Supports Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows 8 as guest operating systems that you can select for conversion.

Click here to download Microsoft Virtual Machine Converter 2.0.