First Look at Windows Server Technical Preview
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj unlikely. But I've not heard of the number yet.
Wasn't the latest release Hyper-V 3.0?
My understanding is that they dropped the version numbers and version it with the Windows Server release now, which is very confusing, but that has been part of the goal of HyperV since day one. Remember the top selling point of HyperV is confusion. So being clear would make no sense for Microsoft on this in any way.
How does that possibly make sense?!
It's not a superior product. It isn't as powerful, robust or cheap (at scale) as VMware and it lacks the extensive free features and maturity of XenServer. So why would anyone choose HyperV intentionally if they understood it as a product? There are some use cases, but by and large it is chosen because someone doesn't understand how it is bundled, that all of the competition are also free, that licensing is the same across all hypervisors or that at scale HyperV is expensive or because people are irrational suckers for bundling (same way that every carrier bundles Internet, television and phones while raising the price and lowering quality - just calling it a bundle is enough to make the average consumer drool and do anything that they are told.)
It is very rare that someone evaluates the options and chooses HyperV understanding all of the factors. The one big exception is that HyperV in its cheapest form allows Veeam and Unitrends to back it up - but that factor is external and not part of the product itself. At a product level, XenServer and ESXi beat it in every way.
We run a HyperV shop (by choice) and I agree with almost everyone of these points. I would have preferred to deploy XenServer but I was more worried about the people who would come after me and would need to support it, in the past there have been some... mediocre hiring decisions before I came on board. What this company really needs is to oursource their IT all together and not have an in house person... of course then I would be out of a job.
Or just hire an MSP to support their very qualified in-house technician...
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@coliver Have you tried XenServer? It's the easiest hypervisor that I have used. HyperV is more confusing to even discuss than XS is to use. I would choose XenServer specifically because it is so easy for someone coming after me.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver Have you tried XenServer? It's the easiest hypervisor that I have used. HyperV is more confusing to even discuss than XS is to use. I would choose XenServer specifically because it is so easy for someone coming after me.
I think his point was that it'd be more likely for someone applying for a job at his office in the future to know Hyper-V over Xen. I hear more about Xen at the enterprise level, and I'm guessing not a ton of those people would apply for a job at @coliver 's office. Just a guess.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver Have you tried XenServer? It's the easiest hypervisor that I have used. HyperV is more confusing to even discuss than XS is to use. I would choose XenServer specifically because it is so easy for someone coming after me.
I use XenServer for my home lab... agreed on all counts... it is ridiculously simple to implement and use even the command line XS console have been useful (I've actually migrated to doing a lot through XS commands). I would recommend it to anyone looking to get into virtualization, or even virtualizing production workloads.
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@thanksaj said:
I think his point was that it'd be more likely for someone applying for a job at his office in the future to know Hyper-V over Xen. I hear more about Xen at the enterprise level, and I'm guessing not a ton of those people would apply for a job at @coliver 's office. Just a guess.
Xen in a cloud is huge in the enterprise space. XenServer is the packaging of Xen into a easy to use, SMB friendly (far more friendly than HyperV) virtualization stack.
XenServer is easier to use than VMware is to get a license from. XS is far more SMB friendly than HyperV or VMware in my experience. Licensing alone makes it easier. If you can use VirtualBox, you can use XenServer. If supporting XenServer presents a challenge, your IT staff can't support a Windows server at all.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
I think his point was that it'd be more likely for someone applying for a job at his office in the future to know Hyper-V over Xen. I hear more about Xen at the enterprise level, and I'm guessing not a ton of those people would apply for a job at @coliver 's office. Just a guess.
Xen in a cloud is huge in the enterprise space. XenServer is the packaging of Xen into a easy to use, SMB friendly (far more friendly than HyperV) virtualization stack.
XenServer is easier to use than VMware is to get a license from. XS is far more SMB friendly than HyperV or VMware in my experience. Licensing alone makes it easier. If you can use VirtualBox, you can use XenServer. If supporting XenServer presents a challenge, your IT staff can't support a Windows server at all.
The appearance of having to support something vs the reality can often be very different. Some things that might sound really difficult are really easy, and vice versa. It's all about perception in this case.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
I think his point was that it'd be more likely for someone applying for a job at his office in the future to know Hyper-V over Xen. I hear more about Xen at the enterprise level, and I'm guessing not a ton of those people would apply for a job at @coliver 's office. Just a guess.
Xen in a cloud is huge in the enterprise space. XenServer is the packaging of Xen into a easy to use, SMB friendly (far more friendly than HyperV) virtualization stack.
XenServer is easier to use than VMware is to get a license from. XS is far more SMB friendly than HyperV or VMware in my experience. Licensing alone makes it easier. If you can use VirtualBox, you can use XenServer. If supporting XenServer presents a challenge, your IT staff can't support a Windows server at all.
Isn't licensing for XenServer non- existent now? I was under the impression that the entire thing is now FOSS. Or do you mean support licensing.
Yes, you are correct most people in this area looking for work in IT are exactly as you describe them... which to many would make the choice trivial but I still think that more people are going to recognize HyperV then they would XenServer in this area.
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@scottalanmiller said:
It's not a superior product. It isn't as powerful, robust or cheap (at scale) as VMware and it lacks the extensive free features and maturity of XenServer. So why would anyone choose HyperV intentionally if they understood it as a product?
Because it's Microsoft. I run a Microsoft & HP site here. Not because their products are the best, in most cases they aren't. My reasons are:
- It makes my life simpler to stick with as few vendors as possible.
- Microsoft & HP aren't likely to get bought out, so I'm more confident their products will continue to be maintained and supported.
- I find Microsoft & HP fairly good with their pricing strategy - they rarely shock me. I hate some vendors that double, or triple maintenance fees just because they can.
- It's relatively easy to bring in outside help with Microsoft & HP expertise.
- Microsoft & HP don't generally release shit products. Mediocre ones, yes, but not shit ones. So the brand reputation matters to me.
So I'm likely to choose a Microsoft or HP product even it's inferior. But only if it's a little bit inferior. I don't go crazy. So I still went with VMware in this case. I'm just saying that being a superior product isn't the only factor.
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@coliver said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@thanksaj said:
I think his point was that it'd be more likely for someone applying for a job at his office in the future to know Hyper-V over Xen. I hear more about Xen at the enterprise level, and I'm guessing not a ton of those people would apply for a job at @coliver 's office. Just a guess.
Xen in a cloud is huge in the enterprise space. XenServer is the packaging of Xen into a easy to use, SMB friendly (far more friendly than HyperV) virtualization stack.
XenServer is easier to use than VMware is to get a license from. XS is far more SMB friendly than HyperV or VMware in my experience. Licensing alone makes it easier. If you can use VirtualBox, you can use XenServer. If supporting XenServer presents a challenge, your IT staff can't support a Windows server at all.
Isn't licensing for XenServer non- existent now? I was under the impression that the entire thing is now FOSS. Or do you mean support licensing.
Yes, you are correct most people in this area looking for work in IT are exactly as you describe them... which to many would make the choice trivial but I still think that more people are going to recognize HyperV then they would XenServer in this area.
To agree with this and @Carnival-Boy's points, it's about knowing the job market. People see XenServer, someone might have no idea that they could easily learn it. They just see it and freak out. They see Hyper-V, think Microsoft, and might be just as clueless, but it doesn't scare them as much. It also won't scare management. Management hears they are using Microsoft's hypervisor, they simply hear Microsoft and are good with that. They hear Xen and they lose their shit because they've never heard of that, or it's new and different, or now they would have to find someone who knows Xen, even if that wasn't hard, in their mind, it's just another complication. I can see why this was done.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
- Microsoft & HP aren't likely to get bought out, so I'm more confident their products will continue to be maintained and supported.
HP just split and were on the market to sell. Microsoft is very unlikely to be bought, but is far more likely to be bought than the Linux Foundation is (because you can't buy that.) Your confidence is well placed, but I'd say that the Linux Foundation gives you even more protection than that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
- I find Microsoft & HP fairly good with their pricing strategy - they rarely shock me. I hate some vendors that double, or triple maintenance fees just because they can.
I do too. But compared to the Linux Foundation that has a contractual guarantee that their products are free, no matter what, it's not as good. XenServer is free, period. Even if they wanted to make it not free, they don't have any means of doing that.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
- It's relatively easy to bring in outside help with Microsoft & HP expertise.
That's true. But my point was that XenServer is just as easy, or easier, than HyperV to not need outside help or to get it when you need it. XenServer is super trivial to support, any MSP that can't support that shouldn't be an MSP that you are calling. HyperV and HP are super easy to support, but not quite as easy as XenServer.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
- Microsoft & HP don't generally release shit products. Mediocre ones, yes, but not shit ones. So the brand reputation matters to me.
Neither does the Linux Foundation. I would argue that they track record is vastly ahead of Microsoft. They have no Windows ME fiascos or anything like that. Their track record is effectively flawless. Not everything is a slam dunk, but there have been no major missteps at all. What brand outshines Linux? Some may rival, but I doubt any actually surpasses.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
- It makes my life simpler to stick with as few vendors as possible.
This is the one that I hear often and makes sense, if you are using Microsoft for support. If not, then I'd say that it doesn't really matter. Or if you are using a vendor who does Microsoft and XenServer, then your interface is still a single support vendor. So it might matter or not depending on your support infrastructure.
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@thanksaj said:
To agree with this and @Carnival-Boy's points, it's about knowing the job market. People see XenServer, someone might have no idea that they could easily learn it. They just see it and freak out.
That was my entire point - HyperV chosen because of confusion.
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@thanksaj said:
I can see why this was done.
Exactly. I totally see why it is done. You just wrote out "confusion" in a really lengthy way. I never said that I didn't understand, my point was that I did understand and I was stating why.
