Why is Hyper-V More Confusing
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That people "can" research would suggest that all products are equal based on complexity. But that's not relevant. What does matter is how hard a product is for someone to either pick up and use or to pick up and use well. My point was that XS is very easy to use well, it's default and/or de facto use case does a great job. It pushes you to hardware RAID (but lets experts get around this trivially), it makes it clear what it is and how it works, it doesn't confuse anyone beyond the absolute minimum necessary to be a hypervisor.
Hyper-V, for whatever reason, is very, very confusing for its user base. Most users of Hyper-V (that I've seen) literally don't know what it is, can't figure out its licensing, don't know to look things up, think that Windows software RAID is not just acceptable but should be chosen over hardware RAID even when they already have it, cannot figure out if it is running or not, when it is running they confuse that it is a bare metal or not hypervisor, can't determine when they are looking at Hyper-V or Windows, feel that they need to rely on licensed tools for basic usage, are encouraged to manage via local GUI, are encourage to install with unnecessary overhead and attack surface and are just generally very, very confused.
From real world observation, the gap in "how easily someone can use it well" between XS and HV seems very large. HV is a great product and absolutely can be used as well as XS can be, but my point was that the people that you had felt would find it easier to use - people who feel tied or bound to the Windows world - are the very ones that I feel find HV too confusing and hard to use to be able to safely or reliably deploy it adequately. The level of skill or experience needed to grok XS seems to be a fraction of that needed for Hyper-V.
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@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I don't see how replacing the underlying FREE hypervisor fixes Microsoft licensing nightmares.
Because an entire category of those nightmares are exclusive to confusion around Hyper-V. Remove Hyper-V and that entire range of issues simply stops existing.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I don't see how replacing the underlying FREE hypervisor fixes Microsoft licensing nightmares.
Because an entire category of those nightmares are exclusive to confusion around Hyper-V. Remove Hyper-V and that entire range of issues simply stops existing.
But you've just moved those issues into XS?
What licenses are needed for the core hypervisor and what licenses do you no longer need to buy by using XS?
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@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I don't see how replacing the underlying FREE hypervisor fixes Microsoft licensing nightmares.
Because an entire category of those nightmares are exclusive to confusion around Hyper-V. Remove Hyper-V and that entire range of issues simply stops existing.
But you've just moved those issues into XS?
What licenses are needed for the core hypervisor and what licenses do you no longer need to buy by using XS?
They've not moved. They don't exist when people use ESXi, KVM or XS. It is an entire range of confusion that is unique and exclusive to Hyper-V. No moving, but gone away entirely.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I don't see how replacing the underlying FREE hypervisor fixes Microsoft licensing nightmares.
Because an entire category of those nightmares are exclusive to confusion around Hyper-V. Remove Hyper-V and that entire range of issues simply stops existing.
But you've just moved those issues into XS?
What licenses are needed for the core hypervisor and what licenses do you no longer need to buy by using XS?
They've not moved. They don't exist when people use ESXi, KVM or XS. It is an entire range of confusion that is unique and exclusive to Hyper-V. No moving, but gone away entirely.
But what is confusing? Help me understand.
We start with a free, no license required, hypervisor. Oh you want to install Windows VMs? That's fine but here's the Microsoft rulebook on licensing.
You want to install Linux VMs? Go for it!
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@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Breffni-Potter said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I don't see how replacing the underlying FREE hypervisor fixes Microsoft licensing nightmares.
Because an entire category of those nightmares are exclusive to confusion around Hyper-V. Remove Hyper-V and that entire range of issues simply stops existing.
But you've just moved those issues into XS?
What licenses are needed for the core hypervisor and what licenses do you no longer need to buy by using XS?
They've not moved. They don't exist when people use ESXi, KVM or XS. It is an entire range of confusion that is unique and exclusive to Hyper-V. No moving, but gone away entirely.
But what is confusing? Help me understand.
We start with a free, no license required, hypervisor. Oh you want to install Windows VMs? That's fine but here's the Microsoft rulebook on licensing.
You want to install Linux VMs? Go for it!
Yes, THAT is too confusing. I'm unclear how to make this more clear. You are asking people to go learn something that they are very, VERY confused about. I mean REALLY confused. And your answer is "go stop being confused?" It doesn't work that way.
Hyper-V confuses people in a way that nothing else does. Why are they so confused, I don't know, but they are, consistently and always have been. That Hyper-V is simple to you is irrelevant. That they could go teach themselves what they need to know is irrelevant. The fact is... people are confused and don't go research things (or know what to research or know that they are confused.) And this confusion is totally unique to Hyper-V in this arena.
People can't even figure out that Hyper-V is a hypervisor, that it is free, that Hyper-V doesn't interact with the licenses on top, etc. So your "starting point" is after things are already fixed. People are so confused that they can't even get to your starting point without more effort than needed to install XS.
I think are making my point that you can't be objective... because it's not confusing to you (Or me and shouldn't be to anyone) you are failing to understand that in the real world, actual Windows admins are really, really unable to figure Hyper-V out. They are totally lost (at least in nearly all cases over the years that I've seen.. and it is a huge majority to the point that this confusion is a common topic of discussion and widely recognized and why I even have an article about it that people still can't understand!)
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Let's put it another way, reading your responses, the average Hyper-V deployer would likely be confused as to what you are even talking about. Because they are sure that Hyper-V is not free, that it affects other licenses and that you can't "just install it" because it goes on top of Windows
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I think the root of all the confusion with Hyper-V is that it is an MS Server product that doesnt cost money.
Everybody skips the EULA, so MS should just put a big vb message box with blinking bright lights that says "Hyper-V Server is free, if you put windows servers on it you must pay for those, but never for Hyper-V Server". Make people hit that button twice, then say an oath to Cortana, "I know that hyper-v server is free, if i put Windows vms on it i must pay for those" Only then would it install. -
I think the real confusion lies in running Hyper-V as a role on Windows server.
So, that SEEMS like you are then running 3 servers (1 more than allowed) but really aren't, as doing that create a VM of sorts to do the management.
Also, it's confusing that you can't use that server with the Hyper-V role for anything else. Can't server files. Can't run backups. Etc., etc..
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@BRRABill said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I think the real confusion lies in running Hyper-V as a role on Windows server.
So, that SEEMS like you are then running 3 servers (1 more than allowed) but really aren't, as doing that create a VM of sorts to do the management.
Also, it's confusing that you can't use that server with the Hyper-V role for anything else. Can't server files. Can't run backups. Etc., etc..
Correct. 100% of the confusion around hyper-v is always people installing Server 2012 R2 + Hyper-V role (and usually other roles) instead of just Hyper-V Server 2012 R2
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@momurda said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I think the root of all the confusion with Hyper-V is that it is an MS Server product that doesnt cost money.
Everybody skips the EULA, so MS should just put a big vb message box with blinking bright lights that says "Hyper-V Server is free, if you put windows servers on it you must pay for those, but never for Hyper-V Server". Make people hit that button twice, then say an oath to Cortana, "I know that hyper-v server is free, if i put Windows vms on it i must pay for those" Only then would it install.That would be nice. But it would still confuse the people discussing it and making the decisions but that haven't gotten around to deploying it yet
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@JaredBusch said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@BRRABill said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I think the real confusion lies in running Hyper-V as a role on Windows server.
So, that SEEMS like you are then running 3 servers (1 more than allowed) but really aren't, as doing that create a VM of sorts to do the management.
Also, it's confusing that you can't use that server with the Hyper-V role for anything else. Can't server files. Can't run backups. Etc., etc..
Correct. 100% of the confusion around hyper-v is always people installing Server 2012 R2 + Hyper-V role (and usually other roles) instead of just Hyper-V Server 2012 R2
Definitely. If that didn't exist and/or MS made it clear what was happening, I think it would nearly all clear up. But that one things sprawls into all kinds of other confusion.
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That they call the Dom0 the "physical" install makes things much worse, too.
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Everyone who deploys software has to make sure he understands licensing. There is absolutely no difference in Microsoft Hyper-V Server, XS or VMware ESXi free:
- The hypervisor is free, period. No server license, no Cal.
- Run a billion Linux-VMs on it. Perfectly fine. No costs involved.
-Run Netware on it and you have to pay for the license for Netware. Simple as that and the same for Windows. - In case of Windows and possibly other OSes, you have to keep an eye on the "move license" rule. This is more important today because of (live) migration of VMs between hosts. Before virtualization, the license was often used for more than 6 months on a single machine. I know quite a few people in IT who never heard about this restriction, not even today. But it is there.
I have to admit that Microsoft forgot to put a big shiny and blinking website online where they say: Hey, it's free! But to be honest, I rarely find what I am looking for on Microsofts website expect when I use Google.
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS. The same may happen with Hyper-V and to be honest again, getting WinRM running can be a bit tricky for beginners.
But changing the technical platform to XS or any other (free) Hypervisor doesn't solve the licensing problem at all.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I have to admit that Microsoft forgot to put a big shiny and blinking website online where they say: Hey, it's free! But to be honest, I rarely find what I am looking for on Microsofts website expect when I use Google.
They didn't. From day one they've gone over and above getting the message out that it's free and not tied to any licensing anywhere. But even they couldn't convince people.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS.
But none where they are doing it normally. If you follow the normal, expected, "not trying to push it or reinvent the wheel" procedure, it's super simple. That means no SD card, no software RAID (they specifically hide this), no whatever. Just take a stock enterprise server like a DL380 or an R720 configured with normal, integrated RAID, pop in the installation DVD and go... it's dead simple as AFAIK not one person has had any issues with it. Our interns have done quite a few installs, no issues with the stock installation procedures across several versions.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
But changing the technical platform to XS or any other (free) Hypervisor doesn't solve the licensing problem at all.
Except it does, because the biggest problem is Hyper-V licensing. So changing it does resolve that one. Even though there is no licensing for it, the fact that people think that there is, refuse to believe that there is not, makes it less confusing to use something else. There is no getting around that. It's not Hyper-V's fault, it's not MS' fault, it just is what it is... some sad industry myth that has taken on a life of its own.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
Everyone who deploys software has to make sure he understands licensing.
Should, but surprisingly few actually do. They might learn enough to know that they are compliant, but learning it well enough to apply that knowledge to decision making is surprisingly rare.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS.
But none where they are doing it normally. If you follow the normal, expected, "not trying to push it or reinvent the wheel" procedure, it's super simple. That means no SD card, no software RAID (they specifically hide this), no whatever. Just take a stock enterprise server like a DL380 or an R720 configured with normal, integrated RAID, pop in the installation DVD and go... it's dead simple as AFAIK not one person has had any issues with it. Our interns have done quite a few installs, no issues with the stock installation procedures across several versions.
Same with Hyper-V, so that point may be on par but doesn't make things simpler at all. Or do I miss something?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
But changing the technical platform to XS or any other (free) Hypervisor doesn't solve the licensing problem at all.
Except it does, because the biggest problem is Hyper-V licensing. So changing it does resolve that one. Even though there is no licensing for it, the fact that people think that there is, refuse to believe that there is not, makes it less confusing to use something else. There is no getting around that. It's not Hyper-V's fault, it's not MS' fault, it just is what it is... some sad industry myth that has taken on a life of its own.
This can also been seen the other way around: "Hey, I'm using a non MS Type-1 Hypervisor, I probably don't need any licenses for my Windows guests now! Awesome!"
