Item: Hyper-V
Rating: 9
Author: Luiz Eduardo Garcia

Overall Satisfaction with Hyper-V

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Hyper-V as a virtualization solution for our environment. As we host several Windows-based applications built with Microsoft solutions, we decided to run our virtualized environment on their technology, prioritizing reliability and compliance with MS licensing. Over the years, we have also deployed some Linux-based applications, and Hyper-V still performs this role very well, hosting dozens of virtual machines running Linux-based OSs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Management of very large virtual machines.
High availability of virtualized environment.
Virtualization of physical network.
Very fast boot of virtual machines.
Hability of moving VMs from one host to another.
Reliable instrumentation for IaaC with PowerShell.

Cons

VHD Set support for Cluster Shared Volumes.
VM console improvements, such as more integration with hosting OS.
Native backup solution.

Return on Investment

Positive: every Windows Server VM is automatic licensed.
Positive: friendly user interface for management.
Positive: fast deploy of new VMs.
Positive: very fast boot of Windows Server based VMs.
Negative: missing a native backup tool.

Usability

First of all, the management console is a well know Windows based MMC, so the controls and commands are very familiar and easy to use. There is also a very large commandlet library in PowerShell, with more resources than in the graphical user interface. It's possible to do anything through the command line. Even when a VM gets stuck or zombie, the state controls respond just fine. And it's possible to resize a lot of configs on a running VM, without the need to shutdown it.

Alternatives Considered

Oracle VirtualBox, VMware ESXi and Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2)

Oracle VirtualBox works just fine on workstations, for testing pourposes. But sometimes the virtual network conflicts with the physical cards on the workstation. VMware is the state of the art, but it costs more than gold, and you will have to license every Windows Server VM hosted on it. EC2 as well; it will require an individual Microsoft Windows Server licence.

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

Windows Server Failover Clustering, Microsoft IIS, pfSense, OpenVPN Access Server, NAKIVO Backup & Replication, SolarWinds Serv-U, Microsoft Teams

Likelihood to Recommend

Hyper-V makes a lot of sense in scenarios that will support several Windows Server-based OS virtual machines. The only limitation of those licensed VMs is the hardware that hosts the Hyper-V role. If you need to deploy many servers running Windows Server OS, it is worth the price. Hyper-V also does a great job of managing the server host's computational resources, including memory, CPU, network, and storage.

Hyper-V Feature Ratings

Comments

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Hyper-V fulfils its role with readability and confidence.