VMWare or Hyper-V?

[dbuckprsd]

Hi,

Right now, all of our servers at all of our schools are standalone. I have a VMWare Management background, but since I am working with a clean slate here, I am wondering if I should stick with VMWare or move to Server 2012 with Hyper-V.

 

My goals are:

- I want something easy for our network guy to manage. I heard that Hyper-V is easy to learn / not as complicated.

- Something that is easy to implement. I want to start at our main HS/MS building but move to virtual at our elementaries eventually.

- Importantly, cost effective.

 

I am leaning towards Hyper-V at the moment, but would like to get some opinions from folks in the edu field as to what their experience has been.

 

Some questions:

Is System Center a requirement for Hyper-V?

Is Hyper-V a more complicated install than VMWare?

The reasons for these questions is that when I speak to my vendor of choice, he is pointing out that Hyper-V isn't as cheap as one would think once you put all the pieces together.

He also states that his engineering department says that it takes twice as long to perform a Hyper-V installation than VMWare.

 

Recurring Costs: I know that VMWare has a yearly licensing fee. Does Hyper-V require the same? This is where I think we will see a better investment with Hyper-V

 

Thanks is advance for helping.

[nickbro]

No Hyper-V doesn't need System Centre

It's Easier, you install the Hyper-V role in Windows Server

Hyper-V is free with Windows, Windows Server comes with 1 free Virtual Server License

Hyper-V is just a case of installing Windows Server on the base server, either standard or hyper-v version. On the standard you just then install the hyper-v hypervisor: Hyper-V - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Norphy]

Is System Center a requirement for Hyper-V?

Is Hyper-V a more complicated install than VMWare?

The reasons for these questions is that when I speak to my vendor of choice, he is pointing out that Hyper-V isn't as cheap as one would think once you put all the pieces together.

He also states that his engineering department says that it takes twice as long to perform a Hyper-V installation than VMWare.

 

Recurring Costs: I know that VMWare has a yearly licensing fee. Does Hyper-V require the same? This is where I think we will see a better investment with Hyper-V

 

1) No. Hyper-V can be managed from its own console or from the clustering console if you're clustering it. SCVMM isn't required but it allows for some more advanced functionality.

 

2) Not really. At it simplest, it's as simple as VMware. At its most complex, it's as complex as VMware. However, it is a different process so make sure you read up.

 

3) Realistically, the cost of using Hyper-V is a Windows Datacenter license per two CPU sockets in your farm and a System Center license if you want to use SCVMM. It's dirt cheap for education. That gets you unlimited guest installations of Windows Server. There is a free version of Hyper-V which gets you all of the functionality but you don't get any guest OS licenses.

 

4) That's probably due to their inexperience with the MS platform than anything being inherently wrong with it. I've installed both, I don't think either took any longer than the other. And in any case, who gives a flying fig how long it takes to install just so long as it's working at the end of it?

 

5) If you get your licensing on EES or have SA, there's a recurring cost for that but it's substantially less than VMware maintenance.

Edited December 12, 2014 by Norphy

[Roberto]

The reasons for these questions is that when I speak to my vendor of choice, he is pointing out that Hyper-V isn't as cheap as one would think once you put all the pieces together.

He also states that his engineering department says that it takes twice as long to perform a Hyper-V installation than VMWare.

 

Recurring Costs: I know that VMWare has a yearly licensing fee. Does Hyper-V require the same? This is where I think we will see a better investment with Hyper-V

 

Thanks is advance for helping.

 

All I'd say to these is:

 

It might take twice as long for them to install HyperV because they don't know it very well. That's a reason to go elsewhere for consultancy, not to turn away from using HyperV.

 

As for cost, I can tell you that in the year we decided to switch, we paid less to licence and install all the costs we would need to install HyperV and all the stuff you could possibly want to manage it with from scratch than it would have cost us to simply go ahead and renew the vcenter licence we already had.

 

I personally prefer VMWare's approach to a complex cluster - vcenter and ESXi both come as a couple of complete packages that you can add plugins to, whereas a full hyperv cluster really has you leveraging a number of different and separate microsoft technologies in order to reach the same level of functionality, so it is a bit more "backwards and forwards" configuring things between different subsystems (even if its not that much more time-consuming)... but it's very difficult to ignore the huge cost saving.