XenServer vs ESXi
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@Carnival-Boy if you are using Windows Server Datacenter licensing then you are completely free to utilize the physical VM for anything that you want as you have licensed the entire machine. There is no overuse possible in that case. But in the case where you have the DC license, there is no incentive to trying to use the Physical / Host VM for anything extra since you can always make another VM for whatever workload you were thinking of running there.
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@DustinB3403 said:
The trouble as far as I can tell with the Hyper-V setup is that our MSP sold it just to sell it, rather than "Oh hey spend X and build a proper Hypervisor, we'll just use your secondary DC to run these machines"
Which "OK" it works but one of these VM's runs a CPU intensive process, and in only able to use 4CPU's because of the limitations of the host hardware.
If I moved this to "my" (and I use my liberally) XenServer I could allocate 12 cores to it, and 32GB of memory (if we bought more to add into the host) and the team that uses it would never have a complaint.
Its the poor proposals after another that are getting to me. It's just not my place to start looking for another MSP... even though I've considered it.
It is your place to point out poor decision making and poor proposals of the MSP though. If this were happening to my company I would bring this up to my boss (and his boss) almost immediately. Especially if they are going to spend money on a product that has no intrinsic benefit over what you are currently using. Especially since you already have that solution running and proven in house.
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@DustinB3403 said:
Nope. . . Hyper-V was installed directly into the existing DC02, and VM's setup while the system was functioning.
Talk about red flags... not only does this VAR/MSP not understand how Hyper-V, a product they had proposed, works but they don't understand the licensing limitation/expectation of it...
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@scottalanmiller said:
@DustinB3403 said:
Its the poor proposals after another that are getting to me. It's just not my place to start looking for another MSP... even though I've considered it.
Here is the big question... is it your job to care about the company or not to care? It's an honest question. Lots of companies would say that it is not your job to be involved. Others would be furious to find out that you knew an MSP was screwing them over and that a manager was letting it happen and not even pushing back for reasonable solutions and you didn't go up the chain to let someone know. Figuring out what your role in is key.
Boy this is something I feel completely undefined on.
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@Dashrender said:
Boy this is something I feel completely undefined on.
It sounds pretty obvious, right? But when you actually stop and ask the question, often it isn't really clear if you are supposed to care or not! It's one of those places where everyone thinks that they would have a clear answer until really pushed on it. And in reality, lots of companies don't want you to care. It's actually quite common.
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@coliver said:
@DustinB3403 said:
Nope. . . Hyper-V was installed directly into the existing DC02, and VM's setup while the system was functioning.
Talk about red flags... not only does this VAR/MSP not understand how Hyper-V, a product they had proposed, works but they don't understand the licensing limitation/expectation of it...
Or worse, they DO understand the licensing! Which is worse, being clueless on the basics or being aware of what they were doing and still doing it?
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@coliver said:
It is your place to point out poor decision making and poor proposals of the MSP though.
That's the question. Is it?
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@scottalanmiller said:
So back to the case at hand:
XenServer has many advantages...
- You already know it.
- It is incredibly easy to use.
- It is very performant and this has been shown.
- The devil that you know.
- Zero cost for everything, totally zero.
- Full Paravirtualization Option for Linux workloads.
- Updates are also free.
- No overhead cost for license management.
- No salesman providing guidance.
- Backups are possible for free.
- Far greater feature set than any possible VMware option.
- HA is free
- vMotion is free
- Storage vMotion is free
- Many more free features
- No scale limitations (within reason)
- Local support available
- Minimal technical debt incurred.
This is a great list. Covers pretty much all the main bases.
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I care... I'll always care... Especially if I like my job... I was at my last job about 3 years too long...but I hung around because I cared... I'd bring this up to my boss in a heart beat... With a big ? hanging over my head, like "Why?" ... and he can either tell me the reason and give me a chance to shoot holes in his reasons, or tell me not to worry about it... At which point, I still care about it, but my duty is done.
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@dafyre said:
I care... I'll always care... Especially if I like my job... I was at my last job about 3 years too long...but I hung around because I cared... I'd bring this up to my boss in a heart beat... With a big ? hanging over my head, like "Why?" ... and he can either tell me the reason and give me a chance to shoot holes in his reasons, or tell me not to worry about it... At which point, I still care about it, but my duty is done.
I suffer the same problem! I do care.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@coliver said:
@DustinB3403 said:
Nope. . . Hyper-V was installed directly into the existing DC02, and VM's setup while the system was functioning.
Talk about red flags... not only does this VAR/MSP not understand how Hyper-V, a product they had proposed, works but they don't understand the licensing limitation/expectation of it...
Or worse, they DO understand the licensing! Which is worse, being clueless on the basics or being aware of what they were doing and still doing it?
The former gives them the benefit of the doubt the latter seems almost malicious although this is another case of, "Does it matter?" While the latter is worse then the former they both equally demonstrate how inadequate this VAR is.
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@scottalanmiller said:
So there is a way to do what you are describing but it doesn't work out super well for you (but works) but generally people mess it up and end up not being properly licensed and overusing what they have.
I think I've got you. So the I'm guessing the correct approach would be something like:
Demote the DC
Remove the DC from the domain
Do a fresh, clean install of Windows on the host
Install HyperV
Install a fresh, clean VM of Windows and setup as new DCWhich, IIRC, is exactly what we did with ESXi, except that we installed the hypervisor directly and then install VCenter appliance to manage it.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
So there is a way to do what you are describing but it doesn't work out super well for you (but works) but generally people mess it up and end up not being properly licensed and overusing what they have.
I think I've got you. So the I'm guessing the correct approach would be something like:
Demote the DC
Remove the DC from the domain
Install HyperV Server 2012R2
Install a fresh, clean VM of Windows and setup as new DCWhich, IIRC, is exactly what we did with ESXi, except that we installed the hypervisor directly and then install VCenter appliance to manage it.
You don't really need a full version of Windows Server for your hypervisor in this case... Hyper-V Server 2012R2 is exactly the same thing just with all the extras cut out of it.
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@coliver said:
It is your place to point out poor decision making and poor proposals of the MSP though. If this were happening to my company I would bring this up to my boss (and his boss) almost immediately. Especially if they are going to spend money on a product that has no intrinsic benefit over what you are currently using. Especially since you already have that solution running and proven in house.
I wouldn't go to my boss's boss over something like this. I don't always agree with my boss's decision, but he's my boss and paid the big bucks to make the big decisions. I'd hope my boss's boss would realise if he was an idiot, but if he doesn't, I don't see it as my place to point it out. I'd probably get a new job before I went over my boss's head about something.
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@Carnival-Boy Sometimes your boss may not really even know what you have already vs what you are trying to buy. I've seen this happen a few times. It never hurts to have an odd number of people involved in decision making -- especially where (potentially) large amounts of money are involved.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@coliver said:
It is your place to point out poor decision making and poor proposals of the MSP though. If this were happening to my company I would bring this up to my boss (and his boss) almost immediately. Especially if they are going to spend money on a product that has no intrinsic benefit over what you are currently using. Especially since you already have that solution running and proven in house.
I wouldn't go to my boss's boss over something like this. I don't always agree with my boss's decision, but he's my boss and paid the big bucks to make the big decisions. I'd hope my boss's boss would realise if he was an idiot, but if he doesn't, I don't see it as my place to point it out. I'd probably get a new job before I went over my boss's head about something.
I'll say I see your point but not that I necessarily agree with it. Sometimes your boss is coming at this from a different perspective and you may need a third set of eyes to determine what the best approach is. However if this is an ongoing constant thing where this MSP/VAR is proposing solutions that are inadequate or don't correctly match the environment there may be something else going on that you need to bring to someones attention.
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I always get advice from my staff and encourage them to tell me I'm an idiot and explain why. But at the end of the day the buck stops with me. I don't expect them to always agree with me, but I wouldn't be happy if they took that to my boss.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I always get advice from my staff and encourage them to tell me I'm an idiot and explain why. But at the end of the day the buck stops with me. I don't expect them to always agree with me, but I wouldn't be happy if they took that to my boss.
I'm of the opposite opinion, I prefer to not have management block upward concerns. I'm not a manager, but when I am I like companies that encourage people to take their concerns "up the stack." Not in a sneaky way but in a "we don't agree, let's take this up a layer and see what someone higher up thinks of our concerns."
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@Dashrender said:
I suffer the same problem! I do care.
Me too, and that makes me have to be careful where I work to make sure that they care too.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
I think I've got you. So the I'm guessing the correct approach would be something like:
Demote the DC
Remove the DC from the domain
Do a fresh, clean install of Windows on the host
Install HyperV
Install a fresh, clean VM of Windows and setup as new DCYes, that's ideal. Since you need to do some maneuvering of the DC workload, doing the fresh install is pretty trivial (since you need to clean off that image anyway.) If it wasn't for that, might make sense to clean it and do the role install instead to save time. But that install should only be a few minutes except for the most extreme cases. Very vanilla.
