SYNACK Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 We use hyper-v here and it works well, epiclly easy to manage and setup also.
RabbieBurns Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 Also RE linux and hyperV I run many different distros but the main production ones are ubuntu server and gentoo and both work perfectly.
IanT Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 I've always gone for VMWare, I have done a couple of installs of Hyper-V (installing on bare metal systems)
Steven_Cleaver Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 Hi It still does use the same space for snap shoting but at the moment it isn't a worry as the SAN has enough storage capacity, and I only usually keep a couple of snapshots of Servers I am making changes to or developing, you can also export the Snap shots somewhere else if you want to keep these, we use a 8TB Buffalo station as that is how we do our backups export to Terrastation then to USB Hardrive for offsite backups, and USB hard disks on rotating basis. 1
irsprint84 Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 Thanks for info only really ever looked at once, is the export a snapshot you do? are you using specific backup software? I may look at getting a NAS to do this this coming financial year
Steven_Cleaver Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 We have a script that bassically Shuts down the VM Server then exports to backup, for backing up them restarts the Server all run on a schedule. If I want to Export a Snapshot I created I just Right click on the Snap shot and Export as long as where your exporting it to is mapped to your machine say NAS box or Terrastation you just select your location. We don't use any backup software. I use Shadow copy setup to the Terrastation to do user araes and shared areas backups and usually evey Half Term run an NT backup to backup user data and shared areas as due to the restrictions on shadow copy number of backups. 1
irsprint84 Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 My servers have to be up 24/7 so couldnt do that! but can you purposely run the snapshot from start to the NAS without having ot snapshot to the drive you want to snap shot?
Steven_Cleaver Posted January 22, 2011 Posted January 22, 2011 My servers have to be up 24/7 so couldnt do that! but can you purposely run the snapshot from start to the NAS without having ot snapshot to the drive you want to snap shot? I think I know what you mean Yes you can purposely run the snap shot from start to the NAS box. 1
Dave_O Posted January 23, 2011 Posted January 23, 2011 There are many issues raised in this thread but very few actually addressed. To pick just one; Nobody seem to have mentioned the inability of Hyper-V to do memory over commit. The whole concept of hot migration of VM on host failure is meaningless in Hype-V unless you have hosts with double the memory allocated for VMs which seems a huge waste of resources. As for the implementation of clustered storage.. not the best in the world. I do have to say the product is improving and we do use a couple of refactored ESXs as Hyper-V servers with "clustered storage" for some of our Terminal servers, but at this stage I would not put anything really important on them. Until a time comes (and I am sure it will) when it does what VMWare does so well, my money stays with VMWare. Sorry have very limited experience of XEN so cannot really comment. Dave O
Dave_O Posted January 23, 2011 Posted January 23, 2011 (edited) So, you install VMWare and the first thing you have to do is install a load of tools on a PC to manage it with anyway! With 2008R2 the Host License includes a Guest OS anyway so you might as well install the 2008R2 GUI and anyone can RDP in and manage the Hyper-V anyway! Yes the VMware footprint is tiny and it takes less time to load but at least 2008R2 will support your HP embedded raid drivers and a bucket of other stuff that VMware throws a hissy fit at! If youre a fruit cake and have a load of NIX boxes that you want to virtualise you should stick with VMware ESXi if you already have an M$ Licensing agreement then Enterprise Server or Datacentre and Hyper-V is the way to go. I'd rather save the VMware Licensing money and buy a SAN with the cash I've left over.... Geoff You are obviously going through troubled times and have had issues with VMWare in the past. As for the "fruit cake" analogy... that's probably about right for me. As for the HP issues, well you only have to read the VMWare forums about HP to see that they make uncomfortable bedfellows. Dave O Edited January 23, 2011 by Dave_O
jayemm Posted January 23, 2011 Posted January 23, 2011 In my last job we implemented VM Ware on ESXi on 7 IBM hosts. It did everything we needed it to do and more. By all means it is not cheap but in my opinion it was worth the money. Never had any issues with it. In my new job just bought 2 IBM servers and VM Ware ESXi again. If I didnt like it I would have looked for something else. Not a huge fan of M$ to be fair, things are either over engineered, or appear to be an afterthought. Like the fact the Server Core which aims to match *nix versions by having a non GUI version, but Server Core has to start a GUI to run the CLI!
gshaw Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 I was just going to post an identical thread but now I can just jump in and reply When I think about the entire package the platform we choose will impact on other decisions as well. Looking at Hyper-V R2 and VMWare there’s a key areas I’m looking at… Stability • VMWare is obviously the more mature platform and was my initial choice just based on the fact it’s the recognised best-of-breed product for most people • From discussions at BETT with techs other colleges there do seem to be more people putting faith in Hyper-V, especially since the R2 release Technical The main features that affect us would probably be… • Memory overcommit, if we go Hyper-V we need to make sure any host has enough RAM to take the VMs from any other host as it can’t do VMWare-style RAM overcommit. Note: this feature seems to be coming in R2 SP1 Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 Beta • NIC teaming seems to be a bit of a worry on Hyper-V as it’s not officially supported (?) and seems to be down to how well the NIC drivers are working. We’re also going down the VLAN route so we can consolidate our networks so need to check how well a teamed \ VLAN tagged configuration works in Hyper-V. If using Hyper-V how many NICs have you got going back to the core switch per host? Surely you need minimum 2 over two separate network cards to get any kind of redundancy and tbh I'd imagine more like 4 would be safe i.e. 2 x dual port NICs teamed to give bandwidth and redundancy. • Hyper-V CSVs seem to work OK but don’t look quite as robust as VMFS, should do the job though • Live Migration on Hyper-V is working OK in my test environment, one restriction is that only one live migration can be taking place at any one time compared to VMWare allowing multiple migrations but don’t think that’s a major issue for us • Hyper-V won’t support Linux host OS unless we Enterprise Linux distributions, not ideal as we do use a few Linux boxes for some open-source apps • OS patching; I can imagine Hyper-V will require patches to the underlying OS compared to VMWare so I guess that links in with the migration and stability questions above Backup • If we go down the Hyper-V route we can use DPM 2010 to backup via the VMs, software is basically free for us under Campus License with minimal cost on the agents • If we go VMWare we could still use DPM but it would have to be via agents installed on the host. The other option would be something like Veeam, which seems to be quite well regarded. We currently have Backup Exec but looking at the options we’re wondering if it’s worth the money we spend on it each year. DPM does seem to be either loved or hated by people at the moment so would be interested to hear from anyone using it. The future \ VDI This is where I lean towards Hyper-V. From the discussions we had in December there’s still some way to go with VDI as a complete solution but we have a few rooms where it could do a job for us (student public use machines etc) and with Microsoft we’ll basically get those features for free. What with the developments they’ve made with RemoteFX I think MS might get ahead of View on this one. So what I’m wondering is that if you didn’t have any virtual infrastructure in place and based on the current marketplace, pricing, features etc which would you go for? I wonder if my reasons for choosing VMWare are based on looking backwards at what it’s done whereas the reasoning for Hyper-V seem to be looking forwards to new solutions. My head says VMWare but money-wise says Hyper-V will allow me to get my wireless project with the money I save! 3
Dave_O Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 GShaw A very comprehensive and measured post. I don't care what they say about Essex and the South , you've got my vote. Dave O
Tricky_Dicky Posted January 24, 2011 Author Posted January 24, 2011 GShaw, that's a great analysis and after spending some time reading everyones response is the way I am swaying as well. Thank you to everyone who replied to this thread, it certainly opened my eyes to some of the additional features out there. Rich
RabbieBurns Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 • Hyper-V won’t support Linux host OS unless we Enterprise Linux distributions, not ideal as we do use a few Linux boxes for some open-source apps Do you mean that Microsoft wont offer support for a Non-Enterprise Linux distro on HyperV, or did you really mean what you said? Because, as has been mentioned a few times, HyperV itself supports most if not all linux distros..
gshaw Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Well it's not in the supported OS list so I guess it's a case of "you can do it but if it breaks it's not our problem" Windows Server 2008 R2: Virtualization with Hyper-V: Supported Guest OS they do say "other OS may work" so if you can get something going and seemingly working OK then fair do's. Might be OK for something only IT use like a Nagios install or something along those lines but personally I wouldn't want to run anything mission critical in an unsupported configuration...
Theblacksheep Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 Do you mean that Microsoft wont offer support for a Non-Enterprise Linux distro on HyperV, or did you really mean what you said? Because, as has been mentioned a few times, HyperV itself supports most if not all linux distros.. It's just 'supported' OS that is the issue. If it breaks, you're on your own and MS won't help. Some other stuff: AFIK hyperv with linux only supports 1 vcpu. Windows 1,2 or 4. VMware supports 1 through 8 vcpu Also hyper v isnt getting memory overcommit in sp1. Its getting dynamic memory. You set a startup ram and a maximum and thats it. Theres no DRS in hyperv either.
RabbieBurns Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 It's just 'supported' OS that is the issue. If it breaks, you're on your own and MS won't help. Some other stuff: AFIK hyperv with linux only supports 1 vcpu. Windows 1,2 or 4. VMware supports 1 through 8 vcpu Also hyper v isnt getting memory overcommit in sp1. Its getting dynamic memory. You set a startup ram and a maximum and thats it. Theres no DRS in hyperv either. I have a gentoo virtual machine on hyperV which I have assigned 2 cores of the hosts 6 and it correctly identifies itself as having two.. (not sure if I am confusing cores and cpus though?)
gshaw Posted January 24, 2011 Posted January 24, 2011 (edited) Btw thanks for the comments Dave_O \ Tricky_Dicky Interesting info about Dynamic Memory, I thought it would be better than that but I'm not surprised if it's a bit of a bodge. My real concern is the teaming issues, has anyone done it, either successfully or with issues? Geoff As for the HP issues, well you only have to read the VMWare forums about HP to see that they make uncomfortable bedfellows. Dave O I've not heard about this before... what kind of issues are we talking about exactly? Seeing as HP kit is my preferred server base it might affect the decision if VMWare doesn't like its host servers! Edited January 24, 2011 by gshaw
Dave_O Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 (edited) Btw thanks for the comments Dave_O \ Tricky_Dicky My real concern is the teaming issues, has anyone done it, either successfully or with issues? I've not heard about this before... what kind of issues are we talking about exactly? Not done teaming but have got a bit of time this week so will investigate. The main issues relate to the small SANS and the HP blades with older bios revisions. So as long as you patch up the bios and avoid the, is it MDA storage series?, then you're OK. Edited January 25, 2011 by Dave_O
gshaw Posted January 25, 2011 Posted January 25, 2011 Ah that should be OK, I'm looking at Dothill, HP P2000 or something along those lines for the SAN Just came across this for HP \ Hyper-V teaming, looks useful http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bc/docs/support/SupportManual/c01663264/c01663264.pdf
arichards Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 We use HyperV at my School and have had no problems at all with it. We run it in a full failover cluster with another virtualised SQL cluster in that !! With SP1 for 2008R2 you will get dynamic memory, which is similar to VMWare memory over commit, in that you can specify a starting memory allocation and then a maximum. For backing up I use Veritas backup exchange 2010 R2 which backs up all the virtual machines. If you want you can have a look at the videos that I produced when I set our system up on my blog: Education Technology Now 1
mrbios Posted January 31, 2011 Posted January 31, 2011 Been a VMware user for the past 2 years, i've never had the oppurtunity to try hyper-v What are the costs associated with hyper-v for a school with a volume license?
arichards Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Hyper-V is just a role within Windows Server 2008 R2 and so has no extra cost associated with it. The licensing of the virtual servers is fairly straightforward as well. If you install the following flavours of Windows on the host you get the following 'free' virtual servers Standard - 1 free virtual server Enterprise - 4 free virtual servers Datacenter - Unlimited free virtual servers Datacenter however is licensed per platter of CPU so as an example I have 5 Hyper-V hosts each with 2 x quad core processors, so I license 10 windows datacenter servers Don't forget as well that the new Microsoft licensing scheme starts in March 2011 which will drastically cut your licensing costs as well.
sparkeh Posted February 1, 2011 Posted February 1, 2011 Also don't forget the stand alone version of Hyper-v server
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