Virtualization Redemption?
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Not aware of any free incremental options for that scale on any platform, least of all ESXi.
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@hubtechagain said:
are there any free/not super expensive options?
Veeam Essentials is pretty inexpensive $800 or so I think for 3 hosts.
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If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
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@Dashrender said:
@hubtechagain said:
are there any free/not super expensive options?
Veeam Essentials is pretty inexpensive $800 or so I think for 3 hosts.
Similar in cost to ESXi Essentials. Presumably well within the reasonable cost threshold if they are happy to pay for ESXi.
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If you move to HyperV you can eliminate all of that cost from VMWare and put that money into the backup solution where the money is needed. All of that money going to VMware seems like just throwing away the resources needed for the actual solution.
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Unitrends will do incrementals on XenServer too, but a completely different pricing structure than on HyperV or ESXi. So no idea if it is more or less for the scenario in question.
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@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard @KatieUnitrends tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
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There are other options too, StorageCraft, for example, will probably do what is wanted here.
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard @KatieUnitrends tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you move to HyperV you can eliminate all of that cost from VMWare and put that money into the backup solution where the money is needed. All of that money going to VMware seems like just throwing away the resources needed for the actual solution.
Not entirely. The client will have to pay for the conversion time that Hub spends converting from ESXi to Hyper-V - probably 2-5 times what the cost of ESXi Essentials is.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard @KatieUnitrends tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
Are you quoting me for effect? lol
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard Katey tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
Hmm, I could have sworn that they offered the 3TB backup thing in the $1000 range. That doesn't seem very expensive to me if you are considering VMWare and this is critical infrastructure.
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@Dashrender said:
Not entirely. The client will have to pay for the conversion time that Hub spends converting from ESXi to Hyper-V - probably 2-5 times what the cost of ESXi Essentials is.
What's the conversion time? How many are there? ESXi Essentials is not a one time cost but a long term commitment to recurring costs. Yes the biggest one is up front, but you have to just keep paying both as you maintain your license and even more as you want more hosts, CPUs, memory, features, etc.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard @KatieUnitrends tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
Are you quoting me for effect? lol
Fixed her name.
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@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard Katey tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
Hmm, I could have sworn that they offered the 3TB backup thing in the $1000 range. That doesn't seem very expensive to me if you are considering VMWare and this is critical infrastructure.
Compared to Veeam at $800 it's not bad - though there is no size limit on Veeam.
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@Dashrender said:
Not entirely. The client will have to pay for the conversion time that Hub spends converting from ESXi to Hyper-V - probably 2-5 times what the cost of ESXi Essentials is.
If this costs anywhere near as much as the ESXi licenses, something is wrong. This would be a simple and painless process. Not free, things take time, but should be trivial effort overall.
http://www.5nine.com/vmware-hyper-v-v2v-conversion-free.aspx
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@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@coliver said:
If I recall correctly Veeam proper really isn't that expensive, Unitrends isn't either may be worth looking into a paid version of both of those.
Boy, what is your definition of not expensive? Unitrends the last time I looked at them were $1500+ for their baby appliance, and $2000+ for a VM (I think that allowed the backup of something like 2-3 TB).
That said I overheard Katey tell someone at SWorld that Unitrends now has a $399 option, but I didn't get any details.
Hmm, I could have sworn that they offered the 3TB backup thing in the $1000 range. That doesn't seem very expensive to me if you are considering VMWare and this is critical infrastructure.
is that the appliance cost?
No VM. I could be wrong though.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Not entirely. The client will have to pay for the conversion time that Hub spends converting from ESXi to Hyper-V - probably 2-5 times what the cost of ESXi Essentials is.
If this costs anywhere near as much as the ESXi licenses, something is wrong. This would be a simple and painless process. Not free, things take time, but should be trivial effort overall.
http://www.5nine.com/vmware-hyper-v-v2v-conversion-free.aspx
But as you've pointed out to me in the past, the tech gets paid for all time spent working on the project. I suppose he could do this remote, start the process, come back 3 hours later and click finish and hope all goes well, and only bill for one hour.
But that conversion also probably assumes that you have both a Hyper-V and an ESXi host up at the same time, which he does not. He has 2 ESXi hosts. Assuming both hosts have enough storage to hold everything, he could migrate everything to one host, (probably an hour or more billing), then build rebuild the now empty server as Hyper-V (let's say 30 mins of billing to be nice), then the conversion process. Assuming he only spends 1 hour of time managing the conversion we're now at around 2.5 hours at $200/hr = $500... OK that's less than the cost of ESXi.
But if he has to copy the ESXi files to a backup medium to clear up on host, then build the now empty as Hyper-V, then migrate from ESXi to Hyper-V, then backup Hyper to backup medium, restore ESXi to now empty ESXi, then convert to Hyper-V, then build now second empty ESXi host as Hyper-V and restore from backup... that will take a heck of a lot longer.
And the last situation I can think of:
Backup all ESXi to backup solution, format both ESXi servers to Hyper-V, then use tool to restore ESXi images as Hyper-V images on newly built servers - still will probably take more than 3 hours managing. -
@Dashrender said:
But as you've pointed out to me in the past, the tech gets paid for all time spent working on the project. I suppose he could do this remote, start the process, come back 3 hours later and click finish and hope all goes well, and only bill for one hour.
I would assume that he has other work to do as well, not only this. Likely there is a lot of time to do this as a background task. Not necessarily, but likely. If not, this project probably would have moved a lot faster because it would have been a focus rather than a background task. Typically this is something you kick off while watching television or having dinner on a weekend, not something you do while sitting on site at the desk. And that's for internal or consulting staff, nothing about this particular circumstance.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Not entirely. The client will have to pay for the conversion time that Hub spends converting from ESXi to Hyper-V - probably 2-5 times what the cost of ESXi Essentials is.
If this costs anywhere near as much as the ESXi licenses, something is wrong. This would be a simple and painless process. Not free, things take time, but should be trivial effort overall.
http://www.5nine.com/vmware-hyper-v-v2v-conversion-free.aspx
But as you've pointed out to me in the past, the tech gets paid for all time spent working on the project. I suppose he could do this remote, start the process, come back 3 hours later and click finish and hope all goes well, and only bill for one hour.
But that conversion also probably assumes that you have both a Hyper-V and an ESXi host up at the same time, which he does not. He has 2 ESXi hosts. Assuming both hosts have enough storage to hold everything, he could migrate everything to one host, (probably an hour or more billing), then build rebuild the now empty server as Hyper-V (let's say 30 mins of billing to be nice), then the conversion process. Assuming he only spends 1 hour of time managing the conversion we're now at around 2.5 hours at $200/hr = $500... OK that's less than the cost of ESXi.
But if he has to copy the ESXi files to a backup medium to clear up on host, then build the now empty as Hyper-V, then migrate from ESXi to Hyper-V, then backup Hyper to backup medium, restore ESXi to now empty ESXi, then convert to Hyper-V, then build now second empty ESXi host as Hyper-V and restore from backup... that will take a heck of a lot longer.
And the last situation I can think of:
Backup all ESXi to backup solution, format both ESXi servers to Hyper-V, then use tool to restore ESXi images as Hyper-V images on newly built servers - still will probably take more than 3 hours managing.You are correct, it can add up quickly. But so can going the ESXi route. Going to HyperV today is an investment in their future. If ESXi gets more expensive over time, the investment might pay off big time. ESXi is really technical debt for an SMB and just puts them at risk. Everything costs more and there are many fewer features. If it is anywhere close to breakeven, you want to spend the money on the future, rather than the past, just as a general rule.
Let's say that they decide that they need HA, vMotion or other relatively basic feature than ESXi Essentials cannot provide down the road.... suddenly the cost of staying with ESXi goes through the roof, but had they spent the same money migrating away they would have those features, for free, whenever they wanted them.
