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Microsoft System Engineer at Summit Technology Solution
Vendor
You can move from server to server without downtime with Live Migration in a VM.

What is most valuable?

1. Improved Windows stability

2. Hyper-V stability

3. Live migration

4. Enhanced session mode

5. Clustering

How has it helped my organization?

Enhanced Session Mode is a feature thats allow you to copy and past inside the virtual machine.

Live Migration in a virtual machine where you can move across your Hyper-V physical servers with or without user interaction, and in a virtual machine you can move from server to server without downtime.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: My company integrates Microsoft solutions for our customers.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Manager IT at a energy/utilities company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
I have less down time in case of a disaster and have saved on hardware and electricity costs.

Valuable Features:

- One-window management of servers

- Less down time in case of a disaster

- Easy to use and manage

Improvements to My Organization:

After deploying this, we have saved hardware and electricity costs.

Room for Improvement:

Not yet rectified.

Use of Solution:

I've used this technology since 2010. It is a really amazing product. By shifting almost my all physical servers into one Box "Host Machine", I am relaxed now. 

Deployment Issues:

Not yet

Other Solutions Considered:

I have also deployed VMware.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Hyper-V
December 2024
Learn what your peers think about Hyper-V. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: December 2024.
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it_user1011 - PeerSpot reviewer
Manager of Data Center at a insurance company with 51-200 employees
Vendor
Reduce the DataCenter overhead cost with Hyper-V

Valuable Features:

• The ROI on Hyper-V is enormous. It is cheaper than any other enterprises visualization tool. • Hyper-V Replica can replace SAN, especially where SAN might be overloaded. • It is dynamic and scalable.

Room for Improvement:

It lacks a built-in cloning function, you have to use the traditional export/import.

Other Advice:

Visualization technology brought succor to IT enterprises users. The cost of acquiring multiple servers and its general maintenance has been drastically reduced. One physical or hardware machine can host multiple visual servers Windows Server Hyper-V is one of the best visualization servers in the market today. The new Hyper-V’s dynamic memory feature is a big plus. It can automatically expand the memory allocation to accommodate more workload from different virtual machines. Other attractive features, that the new Hyper-V includes are, Live storage migration, utilization of up to 4TB memory per host RAM, Virtual Machine converter, replica services, RemoteFX, etc. I added the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008 R2 without any issue. Installation of the guest server was also smooth. Guest VM backup in Hyper-V is quite simple with great features such as, multiple destinations selection and Backup drive mirroring.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees
Vendor
Windows 2012 Hyper V: Huge Improvements

Valuable Features:

Scalability Improvements: Support for up to 4TB physical memory, up to 320 Logical Processors, up to 64 nodes cluster which can support 8000 VM's Migrations: Supports many types of migration scenarios such as live migration, live storage migration limited by only hardware capability. Management and Integration: Lots of management tools, integration with system center makes it a backbone of Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.

Room for Improvement:

Apart from windows and some flavors of Linux, it does not support any other virtual guests.

Other Advice:

If your infrastructure is based on MS products then this is a hypervisor to go for. Virtualization of some of the components such as domain controllers are supported by Microsoft only on Hyper- V.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
it_user4401 - PeerSpot reviewer
it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor

You said that there are lots of management tools. Can you give me some examples, please?

Technical Consultant at a tech services company with 201-500 employees
Consultant
It can easily run multiple applications, but the price is steep.
Pros and Cons
  • "It utilizes the hardware so there are multiple applications running on one hypervisor."
  • "I think there is room for improvement in terms of the cloud solutions."

What is our primary use case?

The features I find most valuable are utilizing the hardware so there is multiple applications running on one hypervisor. This actually saves money for the user. 

What needs improvement?

I think there is room for improvement in terms of the cloud solutions. 

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the product is fine. There is no problem. The only issues we have is with stability of the operating system. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is scalable. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup was initially not easy, but Microsoft has made a lot of improvements and upgrades, and the integration is supposedly more simple. 

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I think it is expensive. I think if they want it to be more competitive, they should lower the price. 

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Principal Consultant at CCE
Real User
A great advantage for any company that is using a Microsoft Windows server
Pros and Cons
  • "It is a great advantage for any company that is using a Microsoft Windows server."
  • "I think the console could use some improvement for the backups."

What is most valuable?

It is a great advantage for any company that is using a Microsoft Windows server.

What needs improvement?

I think the console could use some improvement for the backups. The features should be improved. I know a lot of people who are considering moving to Hyper-V, but are skittish to do so because you need a system center virtual manager or a specialist to integrate the solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

I recommend this product due to its high stability. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is highly scalable. It is really easy to scale and implement. 

How was the initial setup?

The setup was easy.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The pricing is competitive, and a bit less than other options on the market.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
IT Consultant at a tech services company with 1-10 employees
Consultant
The Failover Clustering feature allows us to be able to make our most critical workload highly available
Pros and Cons
  • "It runs our most critical workloads and supports all our branch offices."
  • "The Failover Clustering feature allows us to be able to make our most critical workload highly available."
  • "They can hot add NICs to the VMs. However, there is still not the ability to hot add virtual processors to running VMs."

What is our primary use case?

This is the primary hypervisor in my organization. It runs our most critical workloads and supports all our branch offices.

How has it helped my organization?

It comes with all the features and goodies inside the box, so you do not have to purchase anything else. 

What is most valuable?

The Failover Clustering feature allows us to be able to make our most critical workload highly available. We did not have to pay extra money for it.

In Windows Servers 2016, there is Storage Spaces Direct. Although, it seems as if many of the local organizations where I live prefer to go for traditional SAN setups, I find Storage Spaces Direct to be very attractive, neat, and stable. We did not need to hire a separate storage expert to manage our storage as it was easy to manage and setup (many articles online). We did not have to invest a dollar more than what we paid for the server software. 

What needs improvement?

I think Microsoft has answered most of the concerns of users with the release of Server 2016. 

Now, they can hot add NICs to the VMs. However, there is still not the ability to hot add virtual processors to running VMs. 

For how long have I used the solution?

One to three years.

What was our ROI?

It has helped to keep the cost of IT spending low when compared to the cost of VMware.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Once we bought the datacenter version of the server, we did away with worrying about the cost of licensing our VMs separately.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Jason Wheeler - PeerSpot reviewer
Jason WheelerClient Support Engineer at Defense Department of the United States
Real User

I was trying to find some article somewhere that stated Microsoft was going to begin supporting something other than password based authentication single-sign-on for server 2016. Many organizations have started using multi-factor authentication and that was the main reason my organization decided to stay with VMWare.

it_user1851 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Data Center at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees
Vendor
Great hypervisor with snapshot capability and failover, but it has limitations.

Valuable Features:

Great Hypervisor with snapshot capability, and fail over clustering integration. Also possible to manage with Virtual Machine Manager.

Room for Improvement:

P2V are not live, and there's some limitation on max hard drive space for VMs and the ability to recover VHD file space after files within the VM have been deleted.
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: December 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.