Windows Server 2016 Pricing
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@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
If we're comfortable riding 2012 into the sunset....
I have a rule of thumb about this... anything that something like this is said, it probably means you should not be on Windows
See above... We have an unsettling amount of 2003 servers in production.
The question is why do you have those 2003 servers? Lack of funds to upgrade, lack of motivation to upgrade? lack of support from vendors to upgrade?
That's a question but it's not the question. Pick a reason.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
And Vmware is something we already have a comfortable investment in knowledge and experience with.
So sunk cost and technical debt are and have been driving decision making already. Which they should be partially, they cannot be ignored, but it is important to recognize that they are debt drivers rather than investment drivers.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Side point: Switching horses in midstream to Hyper-V would require using Starwind for the local shared storage component, as I don't think 2016's Storage Spaces Direct is the way we'd want to go. I have no idea what Starwind licensing is like, but wouldn't that be a similar argument about future costs as sticking with Vmware? Either way we will have to continue paying licensing.
You are correct on all points. Starwinds would introduce cost (maybe, not necessarily, you have a ton of VSAN induced cost there), and SSD is not remotely ready for prime time yet. But even in the worst case, Starwind is fractional compared to VSAN and Hyper-V is totally free compared to... well, anything.
But it sounds like a lot of your costs in hardware terms as well come from VSAN. I would guess that if you left the VMware world, you could reduce to two hosts and go to 100% free Hyper-V and Starwind.
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Dammit, wrong browser window.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Moving away from Windows... We have numerous 3rd party vendor applications that are Windows based. Not to mention Exchange, AD, terminal services, etc. If switching to Hyper-V is an uphill climb, what do you think my odds are of pitching a MS exodus?
Depends on your pitching skills. If I talked to the people in charge, my reasons for moving off of Windows would probably not only make them move off immediately, but might get someone fired for having used it already
Basically.... wasting money while not being supported. Basically Windows isn't an option as described. It's incredibly obvious that Windows isn't a valid solution in this case and any apps chosen with that dependency are simply not valid options either by logical extension - they depend on things that can't be afforded or supported in the current environment.
Money is being thrown around on things like VMware and VSAN, but there isn't enough to run viable software on top of them. Massive mismatch of expenditures. Something doesn't add up.
I'm pretty confident that if I made a pitch, they'd drop Windows without question. And investigate how they got into the current situation. As a government entity, a good pitch in this case should secure the case because it would mean not following it would call corruption into question.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Running a Windows environment has huge value to us.
What value is that? That you can't get to supported, secure versions generally is an indicator that Windows is a huge negative value, rather than a positive one. Not 100% of the time, but 99%+
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@mlnews said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Side point: Switching horses in midstream to Hyper-V would require using Starwind for the local shared storage component, as I don't think 2016's Storage Spaces Direct is the way we'd want to go. I have no idea what Starwind licensing is like, but wouldn't that be a similar argument about future costs as sticking with Vmware? Either way we will have to continue paying licensing.
You are correct on all points. Starwinds would introduce cost (maybe, not necessarily, you have a ton of VSAN induced cost there), and SSD is not remotely ready for prime time yet. But even in the worst case, Starwind is fractional compared to VSAN and Hyper-V is totally free compared to... well, anything.
But it sounds like a lot of your costs in hardware terms as well come from VSAN. I would guess that if you left the VMware world, you could reduce to two hosts and go to 100% free Hyper-V and Starwind.
That's what I was thinking as well. VMWare requires at least 3 host for VSAN but recommends 4. 48 VMs aren't really that many and unless you have IOPS number ready you won't really know one way or the other if two hosts can handle what you are speccing 4 hosts for.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Organization has no opinion; he is director of IT and has sole discretion over IT infrastructure budget/purchases.
Who does he report to in the command chain?
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Again, I didn't say we "can't afford 2016". I'm just having a hard time justifying the price increase as applies to our current environment.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Organization has no opinion; he is director of IT and has sole discretion over IT infrastructure budget/purchases.
Who does he report to in the command chain?
City Manager.
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@coliver said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@mlnews said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Side point: Switching horses in midstream to Hyper-V would require using Starwind for the local shared storage component, as I don't think 2016's Storage Spaces Direct is the way we'd want to go. I have no idea what Starwind licensing is like, but wouldn't that be a similar argument about future costs as sticking with Vmware? Either way we will have to continue paying licensing.
You are correct on all points. Starwinds would introduce cost (maybe, not necessarily, you have a ton of VSAN induced cost there), and SSD is not remotely ready for prime time yet. But even in the worst case, Starwind is fractional compared to VSAN and Hyper-V is totally free compared to... well, anything.
But it sounds like a lot of your costs in hardware terms as well come from VSAN. I would guess that if you left the VMware world, you could reduce to two hosts and go to 100% free Hyper-V and Starwind.
That's what I was thinking as well. VMWare requires at least 3 host for VSAN but recommends 4. 48 VMs aren't really that many and unless you have IOPS number ready you won't really know one way or the other if two hosts can handle what you are speccing 4 hosts for.
Yeah, 48 VMs is a two server scenario at least 80% of the time. And at least 5% of the time is just a single server scenario. Three or more isn't unheard of, but quite unlikely.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Again, I didn't say we "can't afford 2016". I'm just having a hard time justifying the price increase as applies to our current environment.
Understood. In the "do we update now" world, it makes sense to possibly hold off. But, I would say, that that should make every single person immediately say "and now we are moving off of Windows because we no longer see it as financially viable." Not that you can't afford it, that it isn't a good ROI for you.
Once you can't justify the spend to run Windows "well", it means that WIndows is the wrong toolset. That's the general rule. Not afford, justify.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Running a Windows environment has huge value to us.
What value is that? That you can't get to supported, secure versions generally is an indicator that Windows is a huge negative value, rather than a positive one. Not 100% of the time, but 99%+
Well that really depends on the answer to my earlier question:
@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
The question is why do you have those 2003 servers? Lack of funds to upgrade, lack of motivation to upgrade? lack of support from vendors to upgrade?
If it wasn't lack of funds, but other reasons for not moving, i.e. lack of motivation, then being on another platform won't solve that problem. really the same could be said for vendor software that can't update to a new version of the OS.
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@crustachio said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Again, I didn't say we "can't afford 2016". I'm just having a hard time justifying the price increase as applies to our current environment.
What do you mean justifying? OH you're talking about justifying 2016 vs 2012 R2. I'm assuming there's already been sign off on the Windows licensing, but the new higher cost for the soon to be current OS is the concern. i.e. how do you sell it to management to buy the new one and not the old one - I think Scott is telling you that you don't, instead you change the entire approach.
Heck, have him read this thread.
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@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Heck, have him read this thread.
There you go.
Here is how other professionals see this decision. What if an auditor was brought in and looked at these decisions....
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
@Dashrender said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
Heck, have him read this thread.
There you go.
Here is how other professionals see this decision. What if an auditor was brought in and looked at these decisions....
Seriously? An auditor? Like they would even understand the question.
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OK there's a barrage of posts coming in so single quoting them is getting tough.
I just want to step back for a moment. I REALLY appreciate the logical replies and hard-hitting questions. It's giving me a lot to think about. What follows will no doubt sound like excuses, but I promise I am trying to keep an open mind here:
I don't think anyone can just declare that we should eliminate Windows from our environment. You don't know our budget, current applications, workflow, user count, or anything else. Yes, I am sure that through application of simple logic and analysis you could make a convincing argument against staying on Windows, especially looking at the situation as presented through a handful of posts. But that in no way allows for all of the soft-costs associated with this. For a team of our size to engineer and execute an organizational wide replacement of an entire operating architecture would be a near impossibility, to say nothing of our other ongoing projects. Recent organizational investments in Windows-based 3rd party applications (including ongoing painful user training and data migrations) alone would kill this in its tracks.
We're kind of getting down in the weeds here. I recognize that there are most likely BETTER ways to do IT in this organization. But the fact is, we are where we are. It has been decades of decisions made over a long time based in the old IT world, and we are very well entrenched. But I can't change that overnight. I am not the key decision maker. My job title is simply "Specialist", and while I can advise and implement, in the end it isn't my call. There is absolutely zero chance of me selling a "take off and nuke the site from orbit" scenario here.
What I am trying to do is make the best of the resources and influence I do have. We're not leaving Windows, at least not during this administration. But yes, maybe Hyper-V is a realistic alternative that we should stop and take a harder look at.
Looking forward to getting this post shredded in 3...2..
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I think that the biggest issue here is that there are loads of decisions that sound unlikely to make sense and all depend on one another. We can't really get a good picture without knowing the whole picture. We are picking apart portions that seem crazy, but they might not be. Likely they are, but we cant really know. We don't have enough info.
But the suspected problem is that the IT manager has an emotional tie to VMware and is funneling them money (not suggesting a kickback, just that he wants to support a vendor that he likes, it's a normal emotional response) and is using this "going to give them money no matter what" opinion to build all other decisions off of. He didn't, we assume, consider lower cost Starwind options instead of VSAN, VSAN drove his sizing, sizing drove his licensing, and so on. If we pull out the VMware linchpin, we are guessing that the rest all falls apart. But we can't be sure until we know all of the factors.
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It's not about tweaking little pieces of the puzzle. It's about getting a new puzzle.
Current setup... four hosts, VMware ESXi, VSAN, Windows of all versions
Possible setup.... two hosts, Hyper-V, StarWind, Windows OR Linux of modern versions
Being able to cut the hardware in half, removing the biggest licensing hurtles, etc. is enormous. Not only does it cut the hardware costs roughly in half, remove the VMware costs, remove some or all of the VSAN costs, but it cuts the Windows licensing costs dramatically as well!
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Server 2016 Pricing:
I think that the biggest issue here is that there are loads of decisions that sound unlikely to make sense and all depend on one another. We can't really get a good picture without knowing the whole picture. We are picking apart portions that seem crazy, but they might not be. Likely they are, but we cant really know. We don't have enough info.
But the suspected problem is that the IT manager has an emotional tie to VMware and is funneling them money (not suggesting a kickback, just that he wants to support a vendor that he likes, it's a normal emotional response) and is using this "going to give them money no matter what" opinion to build all other decisions off of. He didn't, we assume, consider lower cost Starwind options instead of VSAN, VSAN drove his sizing, sizing drove his licensing, and so on. If we pull out the VMware linchpin, we are guessing that the rest all falls apart. But we can't be sure until we know all of the factors.
A fair assessment.
It feels like we're just at the end of a very long chain of decisions, almost like reaching terminal velocity, that looking back we're at the only place we could have ended up based on our original trajectory. And without getting too detailed, I can think of a lot of reasons why A led to B led to C.
