HyperV Vs VmWare

sina2011

hey guys

so I just want to hear your suggestions on Virtualization which one do you prefer Hyper-V or Vmware I know both have features that the other one doesnt but just as a overall virtulization product which one do you like best.?

Cheers.

jibbajabba

I could write 1000+ words, but have a look here :

Hyper-V versus VMware Comparison

It also depends what you want to achieve. Do you just want to play with virtualization, do you have proper requirements and so on.

sina2011

you didnt understand what I said.

I just wanted to know your past experiences with vmware or hyperv and which one you prefer.

I didnt want to gather information to choose between a virtualization product for my environment.

blargoe

I don't think you'll find any experienced VM admin who has used both in a live production environment that would say they like Hyper-V the best, although it isn't a bad product.

jibbajabba

Ah sorry ... well we did use both. Well with "we" I mean us and customer. When vmware released the new license structures for vsphere 5, a customer looked into deploying hyper-v instead. The customer in question already had every 2008 license anyway (their vsphere cluster are licensed with Windows and SQL datacenter licenses) so they COULD have swapped to Hyper-V without spending more money. Even the Systemcenter / Virtual machine manager from Microsoft are next to nothing when paid via SPLA ...

They have started some evaluations and as a result they went back to vmware. In this specific scenario the reason for going back was not just the lack of features (storage vmotion), but also the implementation of networking.

For instance. When using Windows Hyper-V as standalone product (rather than adding the Hyper-V role to a full Server 2008 install), you are obviously limited to the command prompt.

Their infrastructure however had no single point of failure. As a result each NIC was teamed and was using several VLANs. Installing and configuring the Intel driver on Windows Core is somewhat painful, especially when you need to configure teaming and vlans. Although Intel provides all sorts of guides in how to use the command line interface, sometimes it just didn't work or stopped working at some point for no reason.

Then there is management. Microsoft pretty much insists on Active Directory. Although you can make it work in a workgroup environment, managing the hosts is painful (when using standalone hosts).

Now if you want to use the centralized management tools from Microsoft - you NEED active directory. Going back to the "no single point of failure" environment means yet again, more server to be deployed, more to administrate and more to look after in general. And for proper failover you obviously need Windows clustering as well. In their case that wasn't a matter of cost, as the SAN was already in place, but again, it adds to the administration.

So on top of the administrative effort in order to get Hyper-V working smoothly, came the AD requirement and lack of features. As a result they went back to vmware and accept the "hit" on increased license costs.

vCole

I prefer VMware over HyperV. Mostly because of the management, ease of use and stability.

powerfool

I prefer VMware to Hyper-V, as well. This could change in the future... Hyper-V on Windows Server 8 (current codename) looks pretty sweet, but I also have not looked deeply into vSphere 5 either, yet.

Zaits

VMware over Hyper-V hell even XenServer over Hyper-V

instant000

My personal preference is VMware over Hyper-V. However, I worked with a sister company, that went with Hyper-V. There decision was based on cost as the deciding factor, not features. Cost was their most limiting factor, so that is why they went with Hyper-V.

Oh well, when I was there, I made the best recommendation I could, and gave reasons why, and my company chose the "good enough to get by" option, and the sister company chose the "minimum requirements to say you're virtualized" option.

Once Hyper-V adds more mature features in the future, it could probably offer a compelling purchase at that point (especially if you're running all Windows in the first place). Until it gets the availability portions settled, I'd still recommend VMware.

Note: I haven't touched the stuff beyond vSphere4, and the licensing change they made with the tier above Enterprise really left a sour taste at my company, and I haven't even bothered looking at the vSphere5 licensing, as I've not dealt heavily with virtualization since two jobs ago.

powerfool

I think the VMware licensing is pretty much a wash with the revised plan. It was going to cost more for each 48GB block of memory to a 96GB block of memory for Enterprise+.... all they have essentially done is state that today is okay, but once you go more dense that the current precedent, you will pay more.

NinjaBoy

I'm going to go against the flow and say that using Hyper-V with SCVMM has met our needs (looking forward to Hyper-V version 3 though) and currently prefer it for server virtualisation.

However for desktop virtualisation (VDI) VMWare beats MS hands down. Added to that the VDI solution from VMWare integrates into the rest of VMWare's products alot better, MS VDI solution is a whole bunch of products that, imo, was just thrown together as an after thought.

We've got approx 20 virtual servers in a Hyper-V environment as have implemented it in 2 of our 4 external clients (but for our clients that was mainly down to costs for them).