Negotiated Drive Speed
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I consider ESXi the easiest to manage from a SMB point of view. You have the vSphere windows client or the brand new web client to manage ESXi servers one by one. If you buy an Essentials license you get vCenter for ESXi that enables you to manage all of your ESXi hosts in a single pane of glass.
XenServer with XenCenter is the middle of the ground (I haven't tried XenOrchestra yet). You get a single pane of glass more or less, but it is missing a lot of features that vSphere client. You'll find yourself needing to drop to the CLI to do some tasks - for example, you can't tell what actual files belong to what VM except through the CLI.
Last place is Hyper-V. You can fully mange the whole thing from a Windows desktop (once install is done). Install RSAT and Hyper-V Manager tools (see JB's post above). The thing that made me leap away from using Hyper-V was that I had to mange Hyper-V like I manage windows itself - a different tool for every aspect. If I wanted to manage the disks on the Hyper-V host, You have to use the Disk Management in Computer Management. If you want to manage the VMs themselves, you have to use Hyper-V manager. Having to hope between two to three apps was frustrating after using ESXi for 6+ years.
JB is a huge fan of Hyper-V. I think he will think XS is usable once he gets a change to use it for a while, but his comfort with Hyper-V will probably keep him there for a while.
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@Dashrender said:
I consider ESXi the easiest to manage from a SMB point of view. You have the vSphere windows client or the brand new web client to manage ESXi servers one by one. If you buy an Essentials license you get vCenter for ESXi that enables you to manage all of your ESXi hosts in a single pane of glass.
This one is tough. ESXi Free is harder, I feel, but ESXi licensed is the easiest. But the difference is minor and for the SMB market that licensing cost and effort is non-trivial. So while I do agree that when licensed it is insanely easy, when it isn't it loses the single pain of glass making it more cumbersome, I feel, than XS with XC.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I consider ESXi the easiest to manage from a SMB point of view. You have the vSphere windows client or the brand new web client to manage ESXi servers one by one. If you buy an Essentials license you get vCenter for ESXi that enables you to manage all of your ESXi hosts in a single pane of glass.
This one is tough. ESXi Free is harder, I feel, but ESXi licensed is the easiest. But the difference is minor and for the SMB market that licensing cost and effort is non-trivial. So while I do agree that when licensed it is insanely easy, when it isn't it loses the single pain of glass making it more cumbersome, I feel, than XS with XC.
If you buy an agent based backup solution, then ESXi free is still every bit as easy as the paid one one.
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@Dashrender said:
If you buy an agent based backup solution, then ESXi free is still every bit as easy as the paid one one.
Single pain of glass across multiple hosts?
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@Dashrender said:
Last place is Hyper-V. You can fully mange the whole thing from a Windows desktop (once install is done). Install RSAT and Hyper-V Manager tools (see JB's post above). The thing that made me leap away from using Hyper-V was that I had to mange Hyper-V like I manage windows itself - a different tool for every aspect. If I wanted to manage the disks on the Hyper-V host, You have to use the Disk Management in Computer Management. If you want to manage the VMs themselves, you have to use Hyper-V manager. Having to hope between two to three apps was frustrating after using ESXi for 6+ years.
These are the tools that Windows administrators deal with daily though. so it is not like it is hard or unusual for them to use. that is the point. You whine about Hyper-V simply because of this imaginary single pane of glass thing that you think is required.
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
If you buy an agent based backup solution, then ESXi free is still every bit as easy as the paid one one.
Single pain of glass across multiple hosts?
OH.. well no. but I only had one host for 4 years.. and managing two hosts individually is really only 1% harder.
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@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Eh? One VM host in a single pane/single app is how I managed my ESXi server for 4+ years. When I finally got my second host, I upgraded to ESXi essentials from free version and installed vCenter and now had a single pane for both servers.
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@Dashrender said:
JB is a huge fan of Hyper-V. I think he will think XS is usable once he gets a change to use it for a while, but his comfort with Hyper-V will probably keep him there for a while.
For my clients, I am a huge fan of a solid solution that I do not have to manage. I set things up and let it go.
For us this was VMWare + Essentials until Hyper-2012 came out. Since Server 2012 released with the new Hyper-V functionality, that position shifted to Hyper-V. Because again, I can just set it up and let it go and not pay for Essentials.
XenServer will most certainly get to this point, but it is not there yet. It takes too much other insert thing to manage at this point.
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@JaredBusch said:
These are the tools that Windows administrators deal with daily though. so it is not like it is hard or unusual for them to use.
I think that you slipped into SAM world there. Those are the tools that Windows Admins should use every day. This is where I'd say that not using these tools falls below an acceptable line and you'd point out that that is my fantasy world and that in the real world SMB admins aren't familiar with RSAT and similar tools.
My experience is that good Windows Admins normally use them if they have servers of any scale, but in the SMB rarely do and much of the SMB and even into Wall St. firms often are totally unaware of the RSAT. One of the largest companies in the world that I was at recently when I talked to their Windows team, every one of which was making way over six figures, not a single one even knew that the RSAT or remote tools of any sort existed from MS!
While I agree with the theory, in practice, not as many Windows admins know or use these tools as you might think.
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Eh? One VM host in a single pane/single app is how I managed my ESXi server for 4+ years. When I finally got my second host, I upgraded to ESXi essentials from free version and installed vCenter and now had a single pane for both servers.
The vCenter web interface was not there in a decent form until 5.5 I believe.
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@JaredBusch said:
XenServer will most certainly get to this point, but it is not there yet. It takes too much other insert thing to manage at this point.
We've been on it for over a decade and I don't know what things those are. What things are making Xen less set and forget than Hyper-V or VMware?
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@JaredBusch said:
These are the tools that Windows administrators deal with daily though. so it is not like it is hard or unusual for them to use. that is the point. You whine about Hyper-V simply because of this imaginary single pane of glass thing that you think is required.
Agreed - I am jaded because I spent 4+ years managing a single ESXi free server from one app. Even though, sure I know all the tools needed to mange Hyper-V, but this feels like a HUGE step backwards. MS really needs to catch up and put all the tools together.. even if it's just an MMC with all of the components together.
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@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Very true, it was pretty clunky.
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@scottalanmiller said:
While I agree with the theory, in practice, not as many Windows admins know or use these tools as you might think.
Sadly this is true.
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@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Eh? One VM host in a single pane/single app is how I managed my ESXi server for 4+ years. When I finally got my second host, I upgraded to ESXi essentials from free version and installed vCenter and now had a single pane for both servers.
The vCenter web interface was not there in a decent form until 5.5 I believe.
OK that's still 4 years ago. and how many SMBs have more than one ESXi host? I'm guessing all of your clients?
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
XenServer will most certainly get to this point, but it is not there yet. It takes too much other insert thing to manage at this point.
We've been on it for over a decade and I don't know what things those are. What things are making Xen less set and forget than Hyper-V or VMware?
I don't know about less set and forget.. what GUI tools exist to manage Xen? XenCenter is OK.. but far from great. I'm really hoping XO is a lot better.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Very true, it was pretty clunky.
gain for multi servers maybe it was clunky.. but for one host - it was a breeze.
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@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
@Dashrender said:
@JaredBusch said:
VMWare did not have this until recently. VMWare was managed via the desktop client and was not anywhere close to a single pane.
Eh? One VM host in a single pane/single app is how I managed my ESXi server for 4+ years. When I finally got my second host, I upgraded to ESXi essentials from free version and installed vCenter and now had a single pane for both servers.
The vCenter web interface was not there in a decent form until 5.5 I believe.
OK that's still 4 years ago. and how many SMBs have more than one ESXi host? I'm guessing all of your clients?
All of the ones that had a virtualized infrastructure had 2 hosts yes.
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@Dashrender said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@JaredBusch said:
XenServer will most certainly get to this point, but it is not there yet. It takes too much other insert thing to manage at this point.
We've been on it for over a decade and I don't know what things those are. What things are making Xen less set and forget than Hyper-V or VMware?
I don't know about less set and forget.. what GUI tools exist to manage Xen? XenCenter is OK.. but far from great. I'm really hoping XO is a lot better.
Setting up a new XS host and trying XO is on my short list ofthings to do.
