Hyper-V Reviews

This solution is mostly being used to deliver flexibility, high availability, and redundancy to accommodate production demand on an as-needed basis.

The main driver is consolidation, which is then complemented with the above-mentioned items. Hyper-V is a cost-effective platform that helped many companies I've been involved with to reduce data center administration and licensing costs drastically.

Once the platform is in place, it helps to control resources more accurately and on a consumption basis. By using the VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) you have full control of the fabric, workloads, templates and many more resources. Running Hyper-V Core also increases security and reduces update time-frames, which also helped us to increase our uptime and overall service delivery expectations. 

Hyper-V improved the infrastructure drastically, not only from a performance perspective but from a control/administration view as well. This directly affects the products and services offered on the platform. Our customers can increase or decrease resources on their workloads at any given time, which means we give them more control. That positively affects costs, reducing them for the customers. 

In most recent times, the live migration that is available for non-clustered environments was a massive benefit. Microsoft Storage Spaces can be used as an iSCSI provider for Hyper-V, which can help for a cost-effective cluster. Dynamic resource allocation is a great benefit that helps service providers to reduce costs and increase host density. 

I believe further improvement can be made on the cluster manager side, not specifically Hyper-V related. There are some storage problems which do occur in high load systems, especially SQL workloads. These do not necessarily affect uptime, but it can evolve into a larger problem if not attended to. Otherwise, the product is fantastic.

It is very stable. There are some minor problems, as there is with all software applications, but they are not problems that affect the platform in such a way that your customers are affected. If managed properly according to standards and Microsoft's recommendations, it works. It stays online and is very reliable.

Hyper-V is easily scalable. Adding additional hosts, storage or event sharing workloads between clusters (Not sharing the same cluster nodes) is made possible with the recent versions of Windows Server.

I have used Hyper-V since it was launched and upgrading to the newer versions is purely a matter of staying up to date with the latest features to help our customers benefit.

Do not immediately think of massive SANs and expensive servers. Instead, start small then evaluate and test properly to understand how workloads are treated. Microsoft, with Server 2019, gives you a massive number of tools to do this cost-effectively. 

We did evaluate other options before choosing this solution. VMware has always been a good platform but in terms of costs, it is very expensive. The other 'freeware' options are also great but did not tick our boxes in terms of features and contractual agreements.

We are partners with Microsoft. We install 50% of VMware and 50% the solution from Hyper-V, depending on the customer's request.

Mid-level businesses who want to create their own data center, and they are using other Microsoft systems. 

Hyper-V and VMware are similar. However, Hyper-V is less expensive. Hyper-V also has a tight integration with Azure. This means that you can have some VM on Azure and some VM on premises, and you can move a VM from Microsoft data center to a local data center on the customer's side.

Hyper-V could benefit with improvements to their management interface. Also, there are some features that are better on other solutions. For example, VMware is easier to create 3D acceleration than on Hyper-V.

Hyper-V is quite stable. I do not have any issues.

The biggest cluster we have in the field is a node cluster.

The initial setup of Hyper-V is far easier than VMware. You can deploy the solution in a matter of hours.

Our customers consider other options, however for mid-level businesses who want to create their own data center, Hyper-V is easier and less expensive than using both VMware and Microsoft Windows server for VMware for Veeam.

VMware has some features that are better. It is easier to create 3D acceleration, however the licensing model is not good.

I would rate Hyper-V an 8 out of 10.

We use Hyper-V to test multiple virtual machines and servers to be deployed.

The product performs a bit slowly compared to VMware.

At the end of the day, Hyper-V is a Microsoft product. Thus, it provides better stability and is convenient to use.

I prefer using VMware more than Hyper-V. It is a convenient-to-use tool. I encounter issues such as mouse cursor problems, dependencies, lagging, freezing, and unresponsiveness using Hyper-V. These challenges led to a decision to migrate to VMware for virtualization.

The initial setup is easy.

It is an inbuilt tool included in Windows Server. There is no cost associated with it if customers are already using Microsoft products.

I rate Hyper-V a five out of ten.

What I understand from our people is that it's certainly better now than it was a few years ago. They keep improving. 

The pricing is pretty good. 

My understanding is it's easy to set up.

The only negative thing I heard was that the baseline price is very, very attractive relative to VMware, however, the vCenter counterpart, the thing that brings it all together, is quite pricey.

We could probably live without it since we are a relatively small operation, however, vCenter is very convenient. vMotion and so forth are nice to be able to do. However, in order to be able to do the counterpart to that in the HyperVision world, suddenly the cost differential diminishes dramatically. We're not considering a change anytime soon, yet things have changed even from the last two years ago when we last looked at this.

I don't have many insights on stability. I have read a few things, however, it's not really my space. 

Across all of our clients, we probably have a few hundred in use, however, the number of instances of our application that are operating on those virtual servers, I don't know. 

The only data point I have there in relation to the initial setup is a conversation with a guy who spends 90% of his time supporting VMware organizations. He's had some Hyper-V experience. He says, "It's straightforward and I see it growing." That's somebody who's in that who space telling me that just the last week.

The pricing is a function of how many cores you have or how many processors you have. Since we're a Microsoft partner and use tools to create and maintain the software that we sell subscriptions to, we get very attractive pricing. If whatever their counterpart to the vCenter licensing weren't an issue, it would probably be 20% of what we pay for VMware.

When you add the vCenter, counterpart back in, however, it comes to be probably 80%-85% of what you actually need. The last 10% or 15% is where it gets pricey. That's a lot to cover for us to do unless there's some other serious functional advantage - and our guys haven't seen that yet.

I'd rate Hyper-V a five out of ten. I'm not a user of it, so I'm not sure I'm qualified to rate it, however, the part of it that I was most interested in was the pricing notion. Microsoft does all sorts of interesting pricing things. I'm sure they have a good reason for doing it, however, to say, "We'll give you 80% of what you need for almost nothing and if you want the last 20%, you got to give us your left kidney" seems a little unusual.

Mainly, I use Hyper-V to analyze whether it fits the customer's needs as a solutions architect. First, we determine whether the customer is a Microsoft user. Then, we consider pricing and compare it against the features of VMware or AHV to determine which solution would be most helpful.

In terms of how the solution has helped the organization, I would say that cost-wise, it is a cheaper solution than VMware.

The virtualization aspect of the solution functions similar to VMware is one of its most valuable features. Even though it costs significantly less than VMware, it has enough features to compete with it, especially in terms of virtualizing VMs, data stores, NICs, and VNX.

Many vendors, such as Cisco and HPE, are discontinuing support for Hyper-V as they believe it does not have a significant market share. This poses a significant problem for our Hyper-V customers since several major vendors will no longer provide support for it.

Hyper-V doesn't need additional features. They just needed to be well-defined. So, people aren't using it as much as before, and so they need to market it better. Everybody knows VMware, but not a lot of people know Hyper-V.

I have been using Hyper-V for at least five years. Also, I don't remember the version of the solution I am using.

It is a stable product.

Even though Hyper-V is not as scalable as VMware, it can be considered scalable in general.

We don't have any plans in our organization to increase the usage of the solution. On the contrary, I see a decrease in its usage. Nowadays, we work with customers who are going to migrate to VMware from Hyper-V, even though we don't want them to do that. But there is nothing else we can do to stop them from our end. This downfall of Hyper-V is related directly to the fact that other vendors are not supporting Hyper-V anymore.

I rate the technical support an eight out of ten since it is embedded with Microsoft support. So, their support is okay.

Positive

The initial setup process for Hyper-V was not that hard. If one knows about Microsoft and virtualization, it's not a hard product to manage or install.

I have experienced an ROI using the solution, especially when considering SLED customers.

It is one of the cheapest products in the market. So, even though Nutanix gives away AHV, one still has to pay for Nutanix home.

My suggestion to those planning to use the solution is that they use it in a smaller or simpler environment, and it'll easily do the job for them while being cost-effective at the same time. Overall, I rate the product a seven out of ten.

I primarily use the solution for consolidation, and I try to do replication using the last version. However, I need some time to do this configuration.

The solution is free.

The performance is okay.

For some customers that have a smaller implementation and not so much data, it's a good solution.

There are some products that you can mount over Hyper-V that provide the features that, in today's Hyper-V, are not present.

I'd like the performance to be better. 

If you have a bigger implementation, you need more tools to coexist with many, many features that are not present in the base Hyper-V.

The interface needs more options and more refinement. 

I've used the solution since the first version. 

The solution is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. However, the performance could be better.

If you have a bigger implementation, you need more tools and more people. You need to work more. That said, it's cheaper. Some enterprises, some companies, find it better since they may have no more money. Bigger enterprises have the money to spend and have the tools or buy the tools needed, or use they may use VMware implementations along with Hyper-V.

The support is good, however, it is expensive. 

There's a lot of documentation and experience in the market. With some time and experience, you can manage alone. That said, for some problems, support is required. And the support is expensive.

I use VMware and Hyper-V.

If the customer has an implementation with so many virtual machines and multiple networks, maybe VMware is a better solution for the client.

The solution can be complex to set up. If you have a bigger implementation, you need more tools. 

On average, two engineers can deploy the solution. 

I haven't taken the time to calculate ROI actively. That said, it might be there as it is a cheaper option. 

You do need to pay for support, which is expensive. The solution by itself is free. 

I'm a reseller.

If the client is new to the solution, they likely will find the product to be complex. You need one or two engineers to handle the implementation, which is easy to manage. With some training, a company can handle it. 

I'd rate the solution eight out of ten.

We use this product primarily for virtualization.

We can perform maintenance on equipment during the day because we can live migrate all of the machines from server A to server B, and then work on server A. This saves us a lot of time. It used to require working after hours for us to do this.

I think the management tools have room for improvement.

I find that this solution is very stable.

It is very scalable. We used four staff members for deployment, and that was sufficient for our needs.

We infrequently have a need for technical support help. 

The initial setup was very straightforward for our organization. Once we understood it in the lab, it took maybe two weeks to completely understand it and document it. Then, we could send it out to our global branches.

We are a not-for-profit, so I do not see any ROI for us.

Microsoft should have not required a data center license for the new feature of Storage Spaces Direct. There is a new feature that comes with Hyper-V called "Storage Spaces Direct"  What that storage does, it allows you to use the storage in host A and use the storage in host B, and make them work together like they're one shared storage array. The computers don't know that they're putting data on server A or B. To them, it looks like one big pool of disks. Before, we used to have to buy a separate storage array, external to the servers, and tie the servers to that array. But this new feature that comes with Hyper-V let's us use the storage inside the servers, it saves money. But Microsoft tacked on a higher price for their software to use that feature, and that was just terrible. We would be using that feature more if it did not demand a data center license.

We do also use VMware vSphere. But, we use Hyper-V more. Some people have different desires. Some people want a Lexus, and other people are happy with a Honda. Both are great cars, but one is a lot more expensive.

I would like to see deduplication and compression in a future roll-out of the product.

We use Hyper-V for virtualization. 

Hyper-V helps to make a replica server between two machines. It is very easy to learn. 

Hyper-V needs to improve its support. 

I have been using the product for four years. 

My company has three users for Hyper-V. 

Hyper-V's deployment is easy. 

The tool's pricing is cheap. 

I rate Hyper-V an eight out of ten.