VM flavours - ESX, ESXi, VClient, VServer - or Hyper-V?

[mb2k01]

Hi All,

 

As the title might have suggested, I'm reasonably new to the world of virtualisation, but completely sold on the benefits and will be moving production servers to a flavour of virtualisation (to 2x servers, both quad core xeon 3ghz + 32GB RAM each!) very soon... but...

 

What is the best flavour of virtualisation?!

 

Hyper-V seems like a very logical and easier option for me - I have a strong background with MS and very little experience with the other options... but that doesn't mean I want to overlook them.

Hyper-V also makes sense from a cost perspective as it adds nicely to the Schools Agreement and gives us the full feature set of live migration and load balancing etc, which the other variations seem to charge additional for.

 

Those are strong positives for Hyper-V, but I'm also aware that a lot of people (especially on here) use other solutions. Can you give me some bullet points on why I might want to think again and not go down the Hyper-V route? (Obviously if Hyper-V does sound like a great scenario that's all good too!)

 

Cheers

[apaton]

Hi All,

 

As the title might have suggested, I'm reasonably new to the world of virtualisation, but completely sold on the benefits and will be moving production servers to a flavour of virtualisation (to 2x servers, both quad core xeon 3ghz + 32GB RAM each!) very soon... but...

 

What is the best flavour of virtualisation?!

 

 

VMware, Cirtrix Microsoft, Xen, Virtual Box, Linux KVM all do an excellent job of Server/Desktop virtualisation. There are some technical advantages for one solution over another but that just detail.

 

The big question besides cost, must be management. How does one manage the environment ? Because this is where you spend all your time and ultimately will be the biggest cost.

 

For instance if your a Citrix User, then XenServer/Xen Desktop integration and management has got to be a winner.

 

Microsoft, System Center and vAPP make sense to use Hyper-V.

 

"King of the Hill" is VMware and ESX. VMware vCenter and 3rd party applications make a VMware environment the easiest to manage. Extensive solutions for Lifecycle/Backup/VDI/Replication/Patching/Updating/Performance/DR/Reporting etc...

 

Price I'm sure will guide you in one direction or the other, but please think about management & futures, like VDI,Backup/Recovery & DR to name a few.

 

Hope this helps

 

Andy

[tmcd35]

I've built a VMWare environment for a previous school (and got VMWare certified for it). And I'd agree with Apaton - it's the dog's danglies. That said I'm currently half way through a Hyper-V implimentation here. I think you've listed all the reasons I've decided to go M$ this time rather than VMWare.

 

To my mind Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter is a real winner. Comes complete with Hyper-V and you can run an unlimited number of VM's. You need 1 Datacenter license per physical processor.

 

If you're not planning to upgrade your server OS or buy any new server OS licenses then other's like Xen or ESXi are probably worth a look. If you're buying new server OS licenses anyway then Datacenter has to look tempting regardless of VM platform. And 2008 R2 comes with Hyper-V free as standard regardless of edition.

[PiqueABoo]

I think the likely reason people here have mentioned non-MS solutions a lot over the last couple of years is because MS weren't very good at it until recently. Hyper-V R2 has more or less narrowed the feature gap with ESX now though.

 

If I were running some BSD/linux stuff I'd want ESX, otherwise the only difference I can think of that might matter to me is memory commit: ESX lets you overcommit memory e.g. run 5 x 4GB VMs on a 16GB RAM box, with the bet being that the VMs aren't all going to use their full 4GB at the same time. MS don't overcommit so you'd need 20GB spare RAM in the same scenario. [Haven't verified this with R2 of HV but believe it still applies]

 

Note that HV is one of those things that tends to grow a supporting infrastructure e.g. Life is easier if you start with full Windows + the Hyper-V role, and you'll need those in a domain which may as well be a separate one so you need a DC, but two is obviously better and then perhaps you want SCVMM..