Name: Hyper-V
Brand: Microsoft
Rating: 4.0 (145 reviews)

Consultant at a tech consulting company with 51-200 employees

Mar 27, 2013

Microsoft Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere

One topic that gets discussed quite often is Microsoft Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere, and a quick Google search for comparisons will return at least several hundred thousand hits. There seems to be a large number of posts and articles trying to make a case that one is better than the other by listing and comparing features of the hypervisors themselves one by one. The purpose of this post is not to claim that one platform is better than the other. Is that the best way to really compare the different virtualization technologies as a whole, or should we take a step back and really look at differences in approach for the virtual infrastructure and/or virtual ecosystems'

Microsoft:

In my opinion, Microsoft is defining and building their virtualization infrastructure as an extension or expansion of their current ecosystem, with System Center at the center of their universe. If you look at the System Center 2012 product page on Microsoft’s website, System Center product details are broken down into two different areas:

Cloud and Datacenter Management
Client Management & Security

Is this really a big surprise' Absolutely not, since it clearly makes more sense to build on what you already have in place than to reinvent the wheel. The majority of virtual machines that are running on the Hyper-V platform are running Windows, and System Center already has a solid foundation of features and capabilities for managing Windows environments. These features include:

Application Delivery
Mobile Device Management
Virtual Desktop Management
Endpoint Protection
Compliance and Setting Management
Software Update Management
Power Management
Operating System Deployment
Client Health and Monitoring
Asset Intelligence
Inventory

VMware:

In my opinion, VMware is looking to create a completely isolated and separated ecosystem that consists of a collection of appliances with different capabilities working independently and making up the features within the infrastructure, including:

vSphere
vCloud Director
vCloud Connector
vCloud Network and Security
vCenter Site Recovery Manager
vCenter Operations Manager Suite
vFabric Application Director
vCloud Automation Center

Conclusions:

One of the main differences that I see in the two approaches is that Microsoft wants virtualization, cloud, and datacenter management to be an extension of the infrastructure, whereas VMware would like the vCloud Suite to be the complete infrastructure. This starts with VMware developing vCloud as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service to fulfill their promise of the software-defined datacenter.

Click here to read my complete review on TheVirtualizationPractice.com

Disclosure: My company The Virtualization Practice is sponsored by some vendors in this market

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Feb 18, 2014

I recommend VMware vSphere for operating systems different than Windows and Hyper-V for hosting Windows. Hyper-V still offers a better backend for performing live backups of Windows guests and VSS is integrated better than with vSphere at the guest side. vSphere may offer better performance in various environments, especially in larger setups involving dozens of hosts.

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it_user4386

Engineer at a tech vendor with 10,001+ employees

Feb 19, 2013

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Windows 2012 Hyper V: Huge Improvements

Valuable Features:

Scalability Improvements: Support for up to 4TB physical memory, up to 320 Logical Processors, up to 64 nodes cluster which can support 8000 VM's Migrations: Supports many types of migration scenarios such as live migration, live storage migration limited by only hardware capability. Management and Integration: Lots of management tools, integration with system center makes it a backbone of Microsoft's cloud infrastructure.

Room for Improvement:

Apart from windows and some flavors of Linux, it does not support any other virtual guests.

Other Advice:

If your infrastructure is based on MS products then this is a hypervisor to go for. Virtualization of some of the components such as domain controllers are supported by Microsoft only on Hyper- V.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user4401Developer at a transportation company with 1,001-5,000 employees

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Mar 18, 2014

You said that there are lots of management tools. Can you give me some examples, please?

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it_user3870

Senior Manager of Engineering with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jan 22, 2013

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Hyper-V 2012 - Well done Microsoft

Valuable Features:

The best hypervisor in the market! From Server 2008 to Server 2012 Hyper-v technology has evolved rapidly.As more organisations are using virtualisation, key features like VM replication, Virtual SAN Manager and Live migrations - enable organisations to design fail over and backup solutions, without the need to purchase other products.We have been evaluating Hyper-2012 server core for 3 months, up to now - we have had no issues with any virtual machines or the underlining operating system.

Room for Improvement:

To manage Windows Hyper-V Server 2012, you need an additional server 2012 server. Not very cost effective - I think Microsoft should consider pushing a Hyper-V Management console update to Server 2008 R2 to be able to manage Hyper-V 2012.Hyper-V is definitely our preferred Hypervisor. With its simple configuration console, setting up a Virtual Server is very simple. Multiple Hyper-V servers are easier to manage when integrated into a domain network, when you have a standalone server (especially server core) it can be difficult to manage.

Other Advice:

Hyper-V is a must have if you have a subscription with Microsoft’s MSDN program

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user2652Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees

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Aug 5, 2013

How many nodes can be added in a cluster in Windows 2012 cluster?

it_user1851

Head of Data Center at a transportation company with 501-1,000 employees

Aug 27, 2012

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Great hypervisor with snapshot capability and failover, but it has limitations.

Valuable Features:

Great Hypervisor with snapshot capability, and fail over clustering integration. Also possible to manage with Virtual Machine Manager.

Room for Improvement:

P2V are not live, and there's some limitation on max hard drive space for VMs and the ability to recover VHD file space after files within the VM have been deleted.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1122

Infrastructure Expert at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees

Jul 11, 2012

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Microsoft has a winner with Hyper-V

Valuable Features:

Hyper-V definitely has its pro's, some of which are painfully apparent.- The first one is that it is a Microsoft product, which is baked into its Server 2008 and 2008 R2 platforms. You also have the option of a Hyper-V server core, which is only the Hypervisor (this allows for more resources to be dedicated to the individual VM's). - It has Powershell scripting support built in and also excellent Virtual Networking technology.- The VM's are portable. That means that each VM is stored in a single VHD file, which can be transferred to another server and configured and ready to run in less than a minute.- It fully integrates into the Windows environment, allowing access via MMC consoles to change settings and create/administer virtual machines remotely.

Room for Improvement:

The only cons I can really think of are as follows:- Individual licensing costs for each server. - If you aren't using Hyper-V Core and are running Hyper-V on top of the full Server 2008 R2 platform, then you have less resources to allocate to your Virtual Machines. - Except through RDP, there is no way to access the VM's on alternative platforms (like Mac or Linux).I use Hyper-V almost exclusively for all my virtualization needs. From a Network Administrators viewpoint, specifically one catering to a Windows client base, there is no better choice than Hyper-V. Like I said before, it fully integrates into the Windows environment, allowing access via MMC consoles to change settings and create/administer virtual machines remotely.

Other Advice:

All in all, Microsoft Hyper-V is an excellent platform and a great competitor for VMWare.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user3876Database Manager at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Dec 22, 2013

Another drawback of this product is its incompatibility with 32-bit machine versions. Hyper-V runs only on 64-bit versions, so the users of older servers remain unable to use it.

it_user1083

Manager of Operations at a tech company with 51-200 employees

Jul 4, 2012

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Hyper-V is a solution for virtual machines with better scalability, better dynamic memory management, and excellent virtual storage management.

Valuable Features:

The proven technological prowess of Microsoft has produced yet another wonder for virtual machines - Hyper-V. The Windows Server 2008 R2 Hypervisor, is indeed a step towards the virtual world. Gone are those days where you start to scratch your head for low disk space and complicated hardware and networking solutions. The excellent features included in Hyper-V are dynamic memory management, better end user virtual performance, 3D Graphics enhancements, and good quality of media streaming. There is a significant change in Hyper-V for Live migration. This is a step taken by Microsoft to give tough competition to VMWare. Hyper-V with its 64 logical processors has got a new edge in its VM performances. There is a quantum change in previous releases of Hyper-V that is better in SP1 than in SP2.

Room for Improvement:

To optimize the performance of your desktops and servers, you need to install extra RAM and multiprocessors to use Hyper-V. Hyper-V is useful for X64 platforms. VMware has got the edge over Hyper-V in the case of X86 platforms. The latest release of Hyper-V has got better scalability than its previous one. Hyper-V lags in the case of Maximum VM RAM (64GB), where VMware provides 255GB VM RAM. In its earlier version it has got also a smaller number of nodes that can be added in a single cluster which is 16. The number is 32 in the case of VMware.

Other Advice:

Microsoft with its better reach and excellent customer support is always a preferable choice. Although VMware may still be leading the enterprise market, there is neck to neck competition between Hyper-V and VMware. Moreover, in its latest version, Hyper-V has enhanced some excellent features, like additional capability of Memory for VM, running up to 1TB. It has also increased the single VM RAM capacity up to 64GB. There is also an enhancement of 160 logical processors per Hyper-V host, 1024 virtual machines per host, 64 nodes per cluster, 4000 virtual machines per cluster, and 32 virtual processors.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1065

Senior Manager of Data Center at a integrator with 51-200 employees

Jul 3, 2012

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An easy and scalable solution for your enterprise virtualization needs

Valuable Features:

Pros of Hyper-V are- 1) Dynamic memory allocation for the virtual machines by efficient usage real time memory distribution architecture 2) More number of virtual machines per Hyper-V host through VDI technology 3) One of the best features in Hyper V is of live migration of running virtual machines and instances to another server in case of a failure 4) Dynamic I/O redirection using cluster node connectivity 5) Inbuilt Powershell feature to automate backup instances 6) Good virtual network and networking support for enhanced utilization of resources

Room for Improvement:

Few cons of Hyper-V are- 1) Licensing costs 2) Vulnerable to server failure 3) Lacks advanced features of virtualization platform 4) More consumption of CPU, memory and need more disk I/O bandwidth than physical servers

Other Advice:

The hypervisor based server visualization product, launched from Microsoft along with Microsoft Server 2008 R2, greatly helps in managing high availability, load balancing, resource sharing, and fail over clustering. It is a reliable solution, from enterprises to small scale industries, to make the best use of server resources and reducing costs. It enables multiple instances of machines to run together on the same server, which maintains redundancy.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.

it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Sep 1, 2013

Scalability is an important feature of virtualization services that is needed majorly by small enterprises that have room for growth. With this, entrepreneurs new in the business world have no reason to worry about running out of resources because they can easily adjust to what is needed.

it_user1011

Manager of Data Center at a insurance company with 51-200 employees

Jun 28, 2012

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Reduce the DataCenter overhead cost with Hyper-V

Valuable Features:

• The ROI on Hyper-V is enormous. It is cheaper than any other enterprises visualization tool. • Hyper-V Replica can replace SAN, especially where SAN might be overloaded. • It is dynamic and scalable.

Room for Improvement:

It lacks a built-in cloning function, you have to use the traditional export/import.

Other Advice:

Visualization technology brought succor to IT enterprises users. The cost of acquiring multiple servers and its general maintenance has been drastically reduced. One physical or hardware machine can host multiple visual servers Windows Server Hyper-V is one of the best visualization servers in the market today. The new Hyper-V’s dynamic memory feature is a big plus. It can automatically expand the memory allocation to accommodate more workload from different virtual machines. Other attractive features, that the new Hyper-V includes are, Live storage migration, utilization of up to 4TB memory per host RAM, Virtual Machine converter, replica services, RemoteFX, etc. I added the Hyper-V role in Windows Server 2008 R2 without any issue. Installation of the guest server was also smooth. Guest VM backup in Hyper-V is quite simple with great features such as, multiple destinations selection and Backup drive mirroring.

Disclosure: My company does not have a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer.