I've not used VMware for years (I think v5.1/5.5 was the last time), and having seen various issues posted here about code quality and upgrades/updates that break stuff, I'm happy that I've been using Hyper-V.
Rather like Veeam, it just works. I've been using Hyper-V since 2008 R2, and fully intend to keep on using it until something significant happens to change my mind.
Updates are super easy and just take care of themselves. You can use Cluster Aware Updating, or just schedule servers to install/reboot at different times. Set it and forget it. I've been running at some scale and not had any update-related issues on Hyper-V in the last ten years or so. Understandably, the people who do have problems make a lot of noise about it! This is on mostly Dell but also HP hardware.
Clustering is easy, and also just works. There's not even any need for AD to form a cluster these days, though a dedicated AD makes management easier. I'm not using SCVMM, only regular Failover Cluster Manager, Hyper-V Manager, and of course PowerShell now and then. I found I had to "unlearn" some of the complications that VMware made me learn, and re-think about my understanding of how underlying technologies (e.g. network) really work and why virtual is different (or not!). It also made me think about if having a platform that's not Windows (which I know very well), not Linux/BSD (which I know well enough), is a good idea, and if that's a useful thing to be spending time learning/maintaining knowledge of, in addition to everything else.
Another nice benefit is that you have the exact same hypervisor running inside Windows 10/11 on your desktop, which makes some things really easy & consistent, depending on your use cases. Licensing is also easy, as if you're running Windows VMs then you've probably already got Datacentre licences for all your hosts. So you just stop paying for VMware. If you want to do VSAN then you already have Storage Spaces Direct licenced with datacenter, so no extra charge there either.
Don't forget that it also runs all of Azure. Makes it pretty easy to move VMs to/from the cloud if you think you might need to.
You can run your Hyper-V servers without the desktop, but to be honest, it doesn't make a huge difference, and just means that you do have a desktop there on the rare occasions you want to get on and poke at something locally. Microsoft and no doubt all MVPs will disagree with me, but there you go.
If you're not a fan of Windows generally, and don't already have decent Windows & PowerShell skills, it might not be for you![:lol:]( "Laughing")
I am not in love with everything that Micrsoft does by any means, but Hyper-V has worked well for me for the last ten years.
Rather like Veeam, it just works. I've been using Hyper-V since 2008 R2, and fully intend to keep on using it until something significant happens to change my mind.
Updates are super easy and just take care of themselves. You can use Cluster Aware Updating, or just schedule servers to install/reboot at different times. Set it and forget it. I've been running at some scale and not had any update-related issues on Hyper-V in the last ten years or so. Understandably, the people who do have problems make a lot of noise about it! This is on mostly Dell but also HP hardware.
Clustering is easy, and also just works. There's not even any need for AD to form a cluster these days, though a dedicated AD makes management easier. I'm not using SCVMM, only regular Failover Cluster Manager, Hyper-V Manager, and of course PowerShell now and then. I found I had to "unlearn" some of the complications that VMware made me learn, and re-think about my understanding of how underlying technologies (e.g. network) really work and why virtual is different (or not!). It also made me think about if having a platform that's not Windows (which I know very well), not Linux/BSD (which I know well enough), is a good idea, and if that's a useful thing to be spending time learning/maintaining knowledge of, in addition to everything else.
Another nice benefit is that you have the exact same hypervisor running inside Windows 10/11 on your desktop, which makes some things really easy & consistent, depending on your use cases. Licensing is also easy, as if you're running Windows VMs then you've probably already got Datacentre licences for all your hosts. So you just stop paying for VMware. If you want to do VSAN then you already have Storage Spaces Direct licenced with datacenter, so no extra charge there either.
Don't forget that it also runs all of Azure. Makes it pretty easy to move VMs to/from the cloud if you think you might need to.
You can run your Hyper-V servers without the desktop, but to be honest, it doesn't make a huge difference, and just means that you do have a desktop there on the rare occasions you want to get on and poke at something locally. Microsoft and no doubt all MVPs will disagree with me, but there you go.
If you're not a fan of Windows generally, and don't already have decent Windows & PowerShell skills, it might not be for you
I am not in love with everything that Micrsoft does by any means, but Hyper-V has worked well for me for the last ten years.
Statistics: Posted by RobinPGI — Jan 22, 2024 10:51 am
