Item: Hyper-V
Rating: 9
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We started using it initially as an environment for our SCCM imaging environment because you could import the Windows images fairly easily. We have since expanded it to a test cluster and are moving to use it to host Citrix servers. The problem it solves is the licensing cost for VMware.

Pros and Cons

Using a scale-out file server for hosting the HyperV disk ensures no downtime.
Setting up the environment is easily done within a few hours.
Licensing cost - Free with an SLA.
Deploying VM's is very easy once it is set-up.

Apart from having to buy systems with large amounts of the local disk we have not run into an issue with Hyper-V as of yet, and you don't necessarily have to use local storage but storage spaces direct and scale-out file servers work better with local storage.
There is more of a hardware impact upon initial purchasing in my opinion.
Windows updates are hazardous to your Hyper-V server's health.

Return on Investment

The biggest and quickest ROI is the licensing cost as it is free.
It is Windows-based, so even if your engineers have not used it, they can easily figure most of it out because it is Windows which saves on training costs.
Some people just prefer VMware and fighting the negativity of that can be difficult.
Training is available everywhere.
You must have an MS premier support contract or else you will not have any support.

Alternatives Considered

VMware ESXi

The main reason we are looking into Hyper-V is the cost of VMware licensing and support. We running a lot of hosts and the cost of renewal every year is very high when compared to freemium and all-inclusive because we have an SLA. And the functionality of Hyper-V is very good, a lot of companies like CSX are looking at it and running POC's.

Support Rating

Microsoft support is pretty good but it is also like all support. It depends on who you get. When you buy a node specifically for Hyper-V from someone like dell you get the premier support access so you call cell and then they call ms if they cannot resolve the issue. The support is hit or miss but that is no different from any other. I will say they are better than most places, we have not had a bad experience as of yet.

Key Insights

Do you think Hyper-V delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Hyper-V's feature set?

Yes

Did Hyper-V live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Hyper-V go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Hyper-V again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Veritas NetBackup, VMware Horizon (formerly VMware View), VMware ESXi, Trend Micro Apex One (formerly OfficeScan), Trend Micro Deep Security for the Hybrid Cloud

Likelihood to Recommend

We are exploring using it in our VDI environment and it doesn't seem to be quite there for what we want it to do but it would work and would be free. It is also well suited to host our Citrix server environment. Using it as a replacement for VMware can take time to migrate from one environment to another but it can have significant cost savings.

Hyper-V cheaper than its competitor

Overall Satisfaction with Hyper-V