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Hyper-V: Time To Curb the Enthusiasm?

Last week's launch by Microsoft of Hyper-V brought out the enthusiasts right out of the gate, as even gritty bloggers recognized that the hypervisor's price tag as part of Windows Server 2008 (that is, free) is pretty alluring.

However, as we expected, not everybody is all that thrilled so far. We've been hearing little tidbits here and there about how VMware and its ESX competitor don't need to lose any virtual sleep over Hyper-V, but Angelo sent us the most detailed user review of Microsoft's newest creation that we've seen yet:

"I have been experimenting with this 'new' product that is supposed to compete with VMware ESX. And I have several notes that you and others should be aware of.

  1. Every time any Microsoft OS patches are deployed, you begin having issues with the guest OSes. I have tried different update orders: host first, then Guest (ugly); guests first.

  2. There is no easy way to set up isolation networks and determine which guests are attached to each virtual network.

  3. There is no reporting on the VM utilization of CPU, memory, drive or network.

  4. There is no native support for cluster in a box (CIAB), without purchasing expensive SANs.

  5. Provisioning new workstations is still a massive undertaking, and keeping that image patched or up to date poses a real challenge.

As far as I am concerned, it is a nice toy to play with, but if you want to get work done, stick with what works. The strength and power that VMware has are well worth the money."

Thanks, Angelo. So, there you go -- not everybody's in line with the claim that users won't give anything up when switching from ESX to Hyper-V. We expect more of these e-mails in the days and weeks to come, both in support of ESX and in defense of Hyper-V. Help us fill out or collection by contributing at [email protected].

Posted by Lee Pender on July 02, 2008


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