maark Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 Have been running hyper v for 3 years now with no problems and very straightforward to use. Have upgraded to 2012 R2. datacenter licences cheap on EES and also find veeam free good for extra backups though have enabled replication for vital servers. Not sure how you can criticise it if you have never used it.
mikkydoos Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 MS products aren't always perfect, no. But I can't think of a single Hyper-V bug I've suffered in production. *nix is hardly perfect either, is it? Doesn't mean I should disregard all of VMWare just because it runs on Linux. Each product has to be judged on its own merits, and IME Hyper-V is reliable and effective and more than meets my needs as a single site secondary. Each to their own. The guy was only asking for opinions. There's mine. I'll Leave it at that. Take it or leave it.
Ephelyon Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 Just out of interest, and obviously without mentioning suppliers... roughly how much does Windows Server Datacenter licensing cost per host? Thinking we might switch to that model here, regardless of the hypervisor platform...
smithson83 Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 The licencing requirements for Windows Server guest OS's is 100% identical in both VMWare and Hyper-V. OK, so here comes the stupid question, and forgive me if I've missed the point by a country mile. So you can purchase a DC licence (assuming one host and two CPU's), not install it, but run as many Std's as you like under VMware/ESXi etc?
gshaw Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 (edited) We're a VMWare shop and as mentioned above love the lightweight install (SD card in the server, no HDDs required so saves money) and VMware is rock solid. In 2011 when I did a virtualisation project I had the same dilemma and eventually came to the conclusion the 2008 R2 version of Hyper-V wasn't quite good enough so went ESXi. If making the same decision now MS have really upped their game and closed the gap enough to make it a serious contender. For a new install I think it'd be hard to justify the VMware costs now, especially on EES licensing. The only downside is having to run Windows Updates on your VM hosts which means a bit more work from a maintenance perspective, however the license cost savings most likely far outweigh that for most people. OK, so here comes the stupid question, and forgive me if I've missed the point by a country mile. So you can purchase a DC licence (assuming one host and two CPU's), not install it, but run as many Std's as you like under VMware/ESXi etc? Yup exactly, Windows Server Datacentre licensing ftw Edited December 10, 2014 by gshaw
Jonah Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 Personally don't think you can look past Hyper-V on 2012R2 now - we have been running it for the past 18months or so on 4 hosts connected to a CSV and haven't had a single issue. We also use cluster aware updating, which means updating hosts is no longer an issue whatsoever. For management, we use SCVMM 2012R2 but even the built in cluster manager is good enough. For the price for schools I think it's a no brainer. 1
3s-gtech Posted December 10, 2014 Posted December 10, 2014 We run both Server 2012 r2 Hyper-V and ESXi 5.5, so it's easy to compare. Licensing wise, my HV hosts (4) are on Datacentre via EES, my ESXi Windows VMs are on individual server licenses from older Select agreements, with a few EES server licenses for things like one DC which I keep off HV. Gives me good value - my older VMs are running Server 2008 and 2008 R2 so our old persistent licenses still work for them.
sonofsanta Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 Each to their own. The guy was only asking for opinions. There's mine. I'll Leave it at that. Take it or leave it. And I offered my opinion of Hyper-V, and you offered yours of VMWare, and that would all have been fine because we were both in positions to offer those opinions. Except you then made a statement about something you said you had no experience of - Never used it but I bet its really buggy - which isn't an opinion, it's just misinformation. On a technical forum answering technical questions, I don't think an expectation of facts is too much to ask for. I don't know. They all come under our EES licensing based on FTE staff Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but only Server CALs come under EES licensing - the server OS itself still needs licensing separately. There was a thread on just that topic last week. It's cheap as chips, still, something like £30ish for a Std licence, but EES alone doesn't cover you.
localzuk Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 Hate to be the bearer of bad news, but only Server CALs come under EES licensing - the server OS itself still needs licensing separately. There was a thread on just that topic last week. It's cheap as chips, still, something like £30ish for a Std licence, but EES alone doesn't cover you. Its still available under the EES scheme - just not included with the standard "desktop pack".
tmcd35 Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 (edited) Just out of interest, and obviously without mentioning suppliers... roughly how much does Windows Server Datacenter licensing cost per host? Thinking we might switch to that model here, regardless of the hypervisor platform... Extremely roughly... About £750 on a schools select agreement or, I'd guess, £200 per year on EES. That's for every 2 physical CPU's in each host, so multiply up as necessary. Edited December 11, 2014 by tmcd35 1
sonofsanta Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 Its still available under the EES scheme - just not included with the standard "desktop pack". Which pack? As best I can tell (and MS licensing is as clear as mud to me) the Enterprise CAL Suite includes some more server CALs (Sharepoint, AD RMS, more System Center stuff) but no server OS licences. If there's another way that might save me money, I'm all ears!
tmcd35 Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 You pay a separate annual subscription for each server product you want to license through EES, it's not part of the core desktop licence suites.
smithson83 Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 @sonofsanta We have our server via EES, but like like @tmcd35 above, we have two invoices, one for our 60 FTE's and one for our two Datacenter Licences, but it all comes under the same EES login
localzuk Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 It isn't in a pack - you ask for the server products under EES, that's all. IIRC, its about £180 a year for Windows Server Datacenter under EES. 1
sonofsanta Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 Oooh I get you - that's what we do already. £30 something for Server Std, £182 for Datacentre, etc. etc. I need more tea this morning, clearly.
smithson83 Posted December 11, 2014 Posted December 11, 2014 I need more tea this morning, clearly. Go Expresso, it's the only way...
Firefox Posted December 23, 2014 Posted December 23, 2014 We have both....Hyper is fast becoming the only virtual platform to consider. VMware seem to have dropped the ball recently. For us, given that we wanted direct access and VMware don't support IPv6, meant accessing that virtual environment over DA was a complete nightmare. Cloud computing is slowly be taken up by us, and this gives us good reason to ditch the expensive VMware setup for a hybrid Cloud\Hyper V solution
PotNoodleTech Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 After falling off my chair at the VMware VSAN pricing model, I've been looking at HyperV 2012 R2 and the more I fiddle the more I likely! Seems likely we'll be a HyperV Shop not a VMware Shop within 6 months.
Ephelyon Posted January 22, 2015 Posted January 22, 2015 For us, it's now official - we'll be migrating over the February half-term. I expect I'll be in (more) need of follicle stimulation formula by the end of the break!
dan400007 Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 After falling off my chair at the VMware VSAN pricing model, I've been looking at HyperV 2012 R2 and the more I fiddle the more I likely! Seems likely we'll be a HyperV Shop not a VMware Shop within 6 months. Can you share any of the pricing for VSAN?
sparker Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I have just left my primary school where I had 18 Vm's on 2 hosts on VMWare. I would probably have used Hyper V if 2012 had been available at the time but as a newbie I found that VMWare support is excellent whereas MS Support is either delivered through a partner (which my school would not pay for) or paid for online per case which I found to be really poor. Certainly there is plenty available on line but when you are on your own and production is down its good to have VMWare support to take care of you. I had a complex issue which turned out to be the SAN and VMWare support stayed with me till a resolution was found when the manufacturer of the SAN had given up.
bossman Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I know this is a VMware v Hyper-V thread but could I just chuck Xenserver into the mix, its free (Open Source) very small footprint and basically has all the features for free, the only thing you have to pay for is the support if you want it, £400 per 2 socket host. I have been running for 6 years now and had only one incident which could have happened on any Hypervisor. Linux based it supports all linux based VM's and also all Microsoft Server's and client VM's up to date on version 6.2.0 Shared storage ISCSI or SMB3 plus NTFS and many more Just wondering is all on what other peoples views are if they have any? 1
localzuk Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I can't find anything anywhere which says XenServer supports SMB 3.0. However, if it does, it'll be using Samba 4.0/4.1 - which doesn't support multi-channel, so is a lot slower. XenServer always seemed to languish behind - has that changed since they open sourced it? Also, does it now have things like live migration and dynamic memory without having to pay extra?
Tallwood_6 Posted February 5, 2015 Posted February 5, 2015 I really like vSphere, Esxi is arguably the best supported hypervisor and most feature rich, that said I can fully understand why people see it as overkill and opt for hyper v for familiarity and price. It's worth noting that although vmware licences aren't that cheap the basic annual maintenance and support is and the support is pretty good as well. If heard of people saying xenserver as best hypervisor for citrix but I've never used it myself.
Davit2005 Posted February 6, 2015 Posted February 6, 2015 (edited) I have just left my primary school where I had 18 Vm's on 2 hosts on VMWare. I would probably have used Hyper V if 2012 had been available at the time but as a newbie I found that VMWare support is excellent whereas MS Support is either delivered through a partner (which my school would not pay for) or paid for online per case which I found to be really poor. Certainly there is plenty available on line but when you are on your own and production is down its good to have VMWare support to take care of you. I had a complex issue which turned out to be the SAN and VMWare support stayed with me till a resolution was found when the manufacturer of the SAN had given up. I have allways found VMWare support brilliant, I really hope it never changes. For Instance We had an issue and VMWare suggested a conference call between HP and them selves to sort it out. They are always very helpful. I will only phone MS for support as a last resort , there support for Office365 has been totally opposite. I have used VMWare since 3.5, everytime I try Hyper-V I always end up going back to ESXi . I just think Hyper-V is too bloated but can see it's appeal in the cost area. Edited February 6, 2015 by Davit2005
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