Microsoft's view on free Hyper-V 2012 vs. free ESXi 5.0

[tsightler]

Correct, Windows Server 2012 supports NIC teaming with dissimilar NICs natively - yet another cool new feature, just not Hyper-V specific (but nevertheless, very useful for Hyper-V of course).

Well, I don't know about "cool/new", I guess it's "cool/new" for Windows, but it's been a basic feature of other operating systems for a decade or so. Nice to see Windows catching up though.

[averylarry]

I disagree. If that is the case, VMware Storage VMotion is also a "tick-box" feature? And it also works just fine without any shared storage, just over the network, and on VM of any size. Well, I would not say it is a "tick-box". I've seen live polls at a few VMworlds in past, and it is consistently voted as one of the most useful VMware features.

Using shared storage -- SANs -- does not change my desire for storage vMotion. Examples:
1) We have cheap SANs (under $3000 without hard drives). They are full and not expandable. I buy a new SAN (Dell PowerVault). Now I have to plan most of a weekend completely down just to migrate.
2) We upgrade to ESXi 5 and decide we'd like to use native VMFS5. Native means wipe and reformat. Now if only I could move my virtual disks to some other storage, reformat, and move them back without downtime.
3) I expand my SAN (Dell PowerVault). I'd prefer 1 big lun instead of creating a new lun and extending the datastore.
4) As you alluded to, I do not have 10Gb infrasctructure. My downtime is huge for migrating large data. I actually considered using small virtual disks and a Windows spanned volume just so I could migrate little chunks at a time during normal scheduled downtimes, but then (understandably) you can't do file level restores with Veeam.

When I last tested it:
Veeam doesn't migrate without down time.
Veeam didn't migrate without causing existing backup and replication jobs to see the migrated VM as a brand new VM.
I didn't find Veeam's migration to be useful at all -- particularly with my WAN replications. To be fair -- I may not have done things properly.

[Gostev]

Veeam IT has migrated our very own Exchange server to the new hardware 10 days ago using Veeam quick migration, with downtime under 3 minutes. Their original plan was to schedule 12 hours of downtime (big VM this) and perform cold migration. I received the downtime notification, and enlightened them on our migration feature. Took some time to convince them to try it - but it worked flawlessly, and helped us to avoid extended downtime. They were pretty excited. Sorry for off-topic!

[dellock6]

Storage vMotion is a great tool, even more when it's used with shared san. By itself it's perfect for SAN maintenance with 0 downtime, or automated via Storage DRS, a really great tool to guarantee predictable performances to VMs via automated storage vMotion.
I like anyway Veeam Migration, it has the same feeling of the Near-CDP replication: near perfection, but way below the price of other solutions, so the price for value is really high at the end. If you cannot afford some downtime, probably you work in an environment where storage vmotion is needed, if not veeam migration is a good fit.

[averylarry]

3 things I don't like about Veeam's migration:

1) It creates a new VM, which means a new guid, which means backups/replications won't "just continue working". Replication jobs can be fixed (I think) using the replica mapping, but you have to add the VM to backup jobs as if they were a new VM (because technically they are). Not all that bad considering the cost.
2) You can't choose when the cutover happens. I might have an 8 hour downtime window, but if I'm moving 1Tb of data, I have no idea how long it'll take. In the middle of the day is bad, even a short downtime is bad. Ideally the migration would run and then pause waiting for manual intervention so I know when it happens AND I'm already there if any problems arise.
3) You can't choose the mode (smartswitch or cold switch). Call me paranoid, but I've had bad luck with suspending VM's. I would prefer cold switch every time. (The migration would start with the VM running, but wouldn't finish until the VM is powered down.)

I really don't want to sound too harsh -- after all, I could buy storage vMotion (except I'll never be able to afford it with VMware, and I mean never). I just know I would use Veeam's migration quite a bit because the bulk of the data migration can be done with the VM up *IF* at least #2 could be changed.

[Gostev]

#2 was the only feedback from our admins as well

[markfellows]

Tested Veeam's live migration yesterday and I was impressed. We're only a small shop so this functionality may be pretty useful. Pause functionality (as mentioned in issue #2 above) would be nice

Some of the features mentioned in Hyper V3 sound really interesting especially for a small, predominant Microsoft outfit like ourselves, suppose only time will tell!!

[monkinsane]

Anton, that slide is pure marketing stuff, how can you onestly compare a 1-year old and "in production" hypervisor against something actually in Beta? It would have been the same on the opposite to compare upcoming next version of ESXi against actual HyperV 2.
All these slides make the assumption VMware will stay still without any improvement just waiting for cuncurrents to reach them...
Would you like to compare Veeam Backup 6.1 against Vranger 6 that still does not exists???

About my NO, is motivated by some reasons:
- ecosystem: the hypervisor is really only the bare-metal system of our datacenter, but think about vCenter, vcOPS, vShield, vCloud, Chargeback... and there is nothing comparable in MS offering. Is not only about the raw power of the hypervisor...

- stability: even in previous versions MS claimed he outscored VMware on cpus, ram and so on (also Oracle did it in the past). Sadly nobody was even near those numbers in "real production", probably because the do not completely trust hyperv, or simply because above some load percentage hyperv is not so stable. While with ESXi we can really push it to the limit and still have good VM performances. And TPS is still under patent protection by VMware, so nobody can match VM density against VMware...

- security: http://www.kb.cert.org/vuls/id/MAPG-8TVPQL, this is from a week ago, and shows how the ultimate fear of hypervisor technology,the "guest to host escape", was at last discovered and proved. Guess which one was the only non-affected hypervisor?

- management: there are many TCO studies showing that a VMware environment is cheaper to administer since it requires less man-hours. You pay more for the licenses, but than you save on maintenance tasks. I only think about all the patches that comes out every month from MS, and how we have to schedule reboot and downtime on servers...

- third-party support: there are so many examples, but pick only one: storage acceleration. VAAI libraries are supported on almost all storages from medium to large size. MS has its own libraries for HyperV, but at the moment ZERO storages support them. Or you at Veeam can tell us about the CBT features and vStorage APIs and how they help you to create an outstanding product,and how this is available on MS

I'll stay with VMware for a while...

As someone who has used both, honestly I perfer Hyper-V. Management is far simpler - It outperforms VMWare - we were running VMWare befor - switched to Hyper-V - and the VM Performance almost doubled. Also the fact that VMWare stores their VM's in a propriaty filesystem that is inaccessable unless using a ESX host, was the selling point to me for switching to Hyper-V.

Less support hours? I've spent weeks trying to get an ESX server to perform the way it is supposed to. With Hyper-V it was pretty much fire and forget.

Don't get me wrong - I am by no means a Microsoft fanboy, My work pc runs Gentoo Linux in a Win7 desktop enviroment - but Hyper-V is by far the better solution. Sure, I've had some issues in the past with adding linux guests on an Hyper-V server, but that has been resolved very easily - since I was having those issues before the Hyper-V guest additions shipped with the Linux Kernel. (Yes they do, just requires some modifications to the kernel config file to enable them for compilation and installation.)

I used to love and hate VMWare, Now I just hate it. From someone who has made the switch to Hyper-V, take my word for it - you will not be sorry if you do switch to Hyper-V.

[tietzjd]

Slew of things are off in here.

1st ODX is nowhere close to VAAI as of yet. And might not be for 5 years before ODX will catch-up to current state of VAAI, as far as I know no storage array supports ODX yet and like many other API's from software vendors it will be 12 months before the early adopters get it out. Mistake on from 3rd party API on local disk hurts, a bug in 3rd party API in SAN array is deadly.

UnMap has worked since 5.0, VMware back off and Microsoft stated it clearly in there KB on unmap... It's tool you need to be very careful with.. Deleting 2 TB lun will cause lot IO on your SANS. VMware as made some improvements and worked with storage vendors that already support VAAI to make it smoother.

The Migration without Shared storage, MS might have annonced it 1st. But VMware might bet them to the market with them... If you’re going to VMworld check out the sessions. Other goodies in the session catalog too.

I will say that VMware would do well by dropping VAAI and Storage vMotion to ESS+ which will cost you the same as Hyper-V with SCCVM (Witch will be needed for some features). Plus support for bigger VMDK files please be aware Fault domain, and recover issues. (Veeam will help! )

Microsoft has made some major improvements, but unless CVS and Fail over clustering work ton better than all features in the world will not matter. I love the MS articles that talk about missing pings on Live Migrations but file copies still keep going.... Who cares I care about missing that one transaction that made me another million, if my web server is down during that time because of live migration I am out of a job.


Joe Tietz

[chrisdearden]

Who cares I care about missing that one transaction that made me another million, if my web server is down during that time because of live migration I am out of a job.

If you have $1,000,000 transactions running on a system with a single web server then you don't deserve one in the first place </ devils advocate>

[J1mbo]

Ha I thought that too But that said, the VAAI lock against Ent+ is pretty stupid, just one of a growing number of reasons to look elsewhere.

[tietzjd]

Ha I thought that too But that said, the VAAI lock against Ent+ is pretty stupid, just one of a growing number of reasons to look elsewhere.

VAAI is officially available in Enterprise, and to be honest look though the advance settings some time on the lower versions. You might be surprised on what's turned on, again let make sure we compare Hyper-V 2012 with vShpere 5.1 (More news in AUG 2012), 6.0, 6.1 all of them will be out before Hyper-V’s next release. Plus as great as advancement ODX is it’s not support on any hardware array yet.

@Chris... LOL 1 Million dollars just is good number to use, you get the point.. Too much Austin Powers I guess.

@ Gostev and Veeam quick migration, with 10GB Network and good Source/Proxy and destination the down time is very minimal.

Good Monday morning to all!
Joe Tietz

[averylarry]

If you can afford 10Gb network AND the storage to utilize it, you can probably afford storage vMotion.

[choracy]

Ok, not an expert but watching -and using the technology for many years now.

I think Anton's key comment is:

"I am sure it won't take long before we hear VMware's response - they seem to never leave these kind of things alone."

Rmember when back in 2006, Microsoft tried to enter the virtualization market? VMWare responded by giving the famous GSX Server for Free!

Later on ESXi hypervisor was offered to the community. So we can expect a VMWare response here.

Personally I also "haven't even looked at how MS Hyper-V looks like" but gave Citrix a thorough testing before deciding to go with VMWare.

So we must not judge the products by which functionality is free and which is not. Choose what you believe is the best product and eventually (I bet) both vendors will provide similar functionality on their free products.

[alexrogi]

Well, VMware respond and drop the VRAM tax memory!!... No more... They can not continue to charge VM consolidation when you see Hyper V charge you nothing...

Now, ESXI Hypervisor free has no more VRAM tax limit, that was dropped too, but the RAM on the host is still limited to 32 GB... So, no joy there...

I expect ESXI Hypervisor to be unlimited (VRAM and RAM) again, when Microsoft release Hyper V 2012... They will continue to lose market share if they do not..

Heck, they will also have to make VMotion free to still be on the game against Microsoft...

I do not see other way... How can VMware compete?...

Yeah, that can happen..

Or maybe, just MAYBE, VMware will wake up and make ESXi 5.0 free and unlimited again...

[Gostev]

Just to clarify the context of last two comments, they are talking about news from weekly forum digest. Here is the quote for those who opted out:

I've ran into this comparison document discussing differences between Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V and VMware vSphere 5.1 from Microsoft's perspective. Just like any vendor-produced comparison, it is not unbiased (vision-engineered, as I like to say). However, it does make a good job outlining some existing differences in clear and consistent manner. I am sure it won't take long before we hear VMware's response - they seem to never leave these kind of things alone.

[tsightler]

Does Microsoft have any equivalent of VMware tools and, and more specifically the APIs allowing interaction with the guest VMs in the absence of direct network connectivity. I think this is important for the modern, dynamic datacenter with isolated networks between their "customers".

[J1mbo]

Try this: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/tvoellm/archive ... ments.aspx

[tsightler]

Very aware of those, but those are basically just drivers, I'm talking about the "cool" stuff the VMware tools provides, such as the VIX API. That's how Veeam can still do things like perform VSS even when there is no network connectivity, we fall back to "connectionless mode" and use the VIX API to interact with the guest. We also use this functionality to perform instant file level restores when direct network connectivity to the guest is not available. As far as I know, there is no equivalent technology for Hyper-V VMs, and I haven't been able to dig up anything new with the more recent Hyper-V announcements.

[alexrogi]

No sure what tsightler mean, but if he wants a way to connect to the host console and see the VM running with no network connectivity, you can use Hyper V, load Core Configurator or 5nine Manager, and you will then control the VM directly. Those apps run locally on the Hyper V.

To connect to the host console, with absolutely NO network connectivity, you will have to connect a KVM by IP to the physical host, and you will then have the ability to see the console remotely.

Very aware of those, but those are basically just drivers, I'm talking about the "cool" stuff the VMware tools provides, such as the VIX API. That's how Veeam can still do things like perform VSS even when there is no network connectivity, we fall back to "connectionless mode" and use the VIX API to interact with the guest. We also use this functionality to perform instant file level restores when direct network connectivity to the guest is not available. As far as I know, there is no equivalent technology for Hyper-V VMs, and I haven't been able to dig up anything new with the more recent Hyper-V announcements.

[tsightler]

I'm not talking about connecting with the console, I want to interact with the guest programatically. Perhaps you guys are not aware of the level of interaction that VMware provides with the guest, and it's not critical in small/medium shops that are running a simple environment for a single organizaion (or environments that have connectivity between them), however, for larger shops, where different virtual environments may have no network communications between each other at all, the features of VIX are quite important in that it still allows automated guest based customizations even with no network connectivity to the VM.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/

I'm trying to find out if there is any equivalent of this feature in Hyper-V. Certainly if connectivity is available you can likely do everything with WMI, but in cases where you are managing VMs in many different, isolated network environments, this won't work.

[alexrogi]

The equivalent will be Powershell, I guess.

Powershell allows you to manage a variety of components, including:

Virtual machine configuration and state
Virtual hard disks
Virtual floppy disks
Virtual CD/DVD images
Virtual network adapters
Virtual network switches
Snapshots

see http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/maga ... 58346.aspx

Is that what you mean?..

I'm not talking about connecting with the console, I want to interact with the guest programatically. Perhaps you guys are not aware of the level of interaction that VMware provides with the guest, and it's not critical in small/medium shops that are running a simple environment for a single organizaion (or environments that have connectivity between them), however, for larger shops, where different virtual environments may have no network communications between each other at all, the features of VIX are quite important in that it still allows automated guest based customizations even with no network connectivity to the VM.

http://www.vmware.com/support/developer/vix-api/

I'm trying to find out if there is any equivalent of this feature in Hyper-V. Certainly if connectivity is available you can likely do everything with WMI, but in cases where you are managing VMs in many different, isolated network environments, this won't work.

[tsightler]

Powershell can certainly be used to manage the Hyper-V hosts, as well as make changes to the Hyper-V VMs configuration, however, I'm talking about actual interaction with the guest OS running in the VM. I can do this with Powershell or WMI as well, at least for Windows VMs, but only if there is direct network connectivity between the host I am on, and the guest. And even with network connectivity this doesn't help me for Linux guests.

Think about it this way, with Veeam we have the ability to perform Instant File Level Recovery directly to a Windows VM, not really that impressive technology wise until you realize that we can do this even without any network connectivity. In other words, you can completely isolate a VM from the network, or even have a VM with no network adapters, and yet we can still restore a file to the VM while the VM is running, assuming VMware tools are installed. This is done by leveraging the VIX APIs which allow use to interact with the guest. This is extremely common and quite useful even in fairly small environments where a DMZ exists. I just want to know if the "new" Hyper-V has an equivalent to this feature which has existed in VMware for almost forever.

If you want to understand more, the following video is a great intro to the VIX API.

http://vimeo.com/16507180

[alexrogi]

Well, Powershell needs NO network connectivity. VM can be with no NIC and you still will be able to manage the VM with Powershell. Powershell uses the Integration services, not the Network NICs. Different things.

Now, about accessing the files directly from any VM, Hyper V as a host, can mount the VHD just like any drive.

You can mount a VHD on the Hyper V host, give it a drive letter, and then access any file from the VM, WITHOUT the VM to be turned on. VHD file is just like big drive, nothing less.

Tell you what, Can you please post this very same question on the Hyper V Forum?.. Maybe this site is not the right place to ask, and probably they will give a better solution for what you want to do...

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... rv/threads

Ask for Vincent Hu, he is the man on Hyper V. Just like Gostev is for this forum,,

Powershell can certainly be used to manage the Hyper-V hosts, as well as make changes to the Hyper-V VMs configuration, however, I'm talking about actual interaction with the guest OS running in the VM. I can do this with Powershell or WMI as well, at least for Windows VMs, but only if there is direct network connectivity between the host I am on, and the guest. And even with network connectivity this doesn't help me for Linux guests.

Think about it this way, with Veeam we have the ability to perform Instant File Level Recovery directly to a Windows VM, not really that impressive technology wise until you realize that we can do this even without any network connectivity. In other words, you can completely isolate a VM from the network, or even have a VM with no network adapters, and yet we can still restore a file to the VM while the VM is running, assuming VMware tools are installed. This is done by leveraging the VIX APIs which allow use to interact with the guest. This is extremely common and quite useful even in fairly small environments where a DMZ exists. I just want to know if the "new" Hyper-V has an equivalent to this feature which has existed in VMware for almost forever.

If you want to understand more, the following video is a great intro to the VIX API.

http://vimeo.com/16507180

[tsightler]

Well, Powershell needs NO network connectivity. VM can be with no NIC and you still will be able to manage the VM with Powershell. Powershell uses the Integration services, not the Network NICs. Different things.

If I want to actually perform actions within the guest (i.e. execute a program on the guest, copy a file within the guest, stop or start a service on the guest, etc.) then I'm pretty sure Powershell requires network connectivity. The previous link was to Powershell for managing the VM, i.e. attaching CDs, disks, network, effectively the virtual equivalent of fiddling with the hardware, basically the equivalent of VMware PowerCLI, I'm quite aware of that. Basically these are actions that are performed but the Hyper-V management.

Now, about accessing the files directly from any VM, Hyper V as a host, can mount the VHD just like any drive.
You can mount a VHD on the Hyper V host, give it a drive letter, and then access any file from the VM, WITHOUT the VM to be turned on. VHD file is just like big drive, nothing less.

Sure, but what good is interacting with a powered off HD? No different than pulling a drive out of a system and putting it in another one. I'm talking about interacting with the OS of a running VM, copying files, executing commands, installing software, even in the absence of a network connection. This thread was talking about the advantages and disadvantages of both, and honestly this is one of VMware's advantages that Microsoft leaves off of every comparison chart. I pretty much know there wasn't an equivalent for previous versions of Hyper-V, but just wondering if this will be addressed in the new version.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 77e2b951b8

[alexrogi]

Ah, now I understand, tsightler. Maybe if you ask for workaround on the Hyper V forum, they can help you.

About the question "Sure, but what good is interacting with a powered off HD? No different than pulling a drive out of a system and putting it in another one."

think about DR, in particular, the system volume. Your VM won't boot up, OS just crash, a BSOD because a system file on C:\ is corrupted.

No panic, just turn off the VM, mount on the host the VHD as a drive, copy the damaged file, and turn on the VM again.

No biggie. A life saver if you ask me. No need to move the VHD, no need to reinstall OS. Easy.

I'm looking on the requirements for VIX APIs, but only requires VM Tools and a valid account to run tasks on the VM. Wonder if there is WMI or RPC requirements. Are they free to use on the free ESXi Hypervisor?

But anyway, if VIX APIs do not use WMI, I do not see something similar in Hyper V.

Again, ask the Hyper V forums, I'm not expert on Hyper V.

I know that will be some app monitoring on the Hyper V 2012, see page 23 on Datasheet on

Guest OS Application Monitoring
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/server-c ... ation.aspx

The only option that I see, similar what you mention, is Sytem Center, but that cost money, so, not on the same level.

Sure, but what good is interacting with a powered off HD? No different than pulling a drive out of a system and putting it in another one. I'm talking about interacting with the OS of a running VM, copying files, executing commands, installing software, even in the absence of a network connection. This thread was talking about the advantages and disadvantages of both, and honestly this is one of VMware's advantages that Microsoft leaves off of every comparison chart. I pretty much know there wasn't an equivalent for previous versions of Hyper-V, but just wondering if this will be addressed in the new version.
http://social.technet.microsoft.com/For ... 77e2b951b8

[tsightler]

About the question "Sure, but what good is interacting with a powered off HD? No different than pulling a drive out of a system and putting it in another one."

think about DR, in particular, the system volume. Your VM won't boot up, OS just crash, a BSOD because a system file on C:\ is corrupted.

No panic, just turn off the VM, mount on the host the VHD as a drive, copy the damaged file, and turn on the VM again.

No biggie. A life saver if you ask me. No need to move the VHD, no need to reinstall OS. Easy.

I meant for my use case (i.e. restore files to running VM, installing applications, etc). You can't mount the VHD of a running VM and copy files into it. Obviously there are good reasons for offline access to a virtual disk, I've used this for practically a decade in VMware. Thanks for the feedback.

[adamT]

Yes I will be taking a look. That is not to say I will change, but I will be setting up a test environment.

[tietzjd]

Best reason to choose Hyper-V 2012 over esxi 5.1. Is Veeam supports Hyper-V 2012.

I love the comparisons in picture, just because you can does not mean you should.

A free relatively untested pure hypervisor running a mission critical monster VM. Sounds like resume generating event to me.

I agree with many of the comments in this post, ecosystem, cloud products on top of base hypervisor and so forth. Willing to bet the % of public clouds running on Esxi vs Hyper-V 2012 has rather large disparity.

Looking forward to vCloud Director, Dynamic OPS and truly software defined datacenter including software defined storage, networking and compute.

[kewnev]

You can mount a VHD on the Hyper V host, give it a drive letter, and then access any file from the VM, WITHOUT the VM to be turned on. VHD file is just like big drive, nothing less.

Just a heads up for anyone using an older OS, you can also browse a VHD and extract files using the wonderful free compressor/decompressor "7-zip".