Why is Hyper-V More Confusing
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS.
But none where they are doing it normally. If you follow the normal, expected, "not trying to push it or reinvent the wheel" procedure, it's super simple. That means no SD card, no software RAID (they specifically hide this), no whatever. Just take a stock enterprise server like a DL380 or an R720 configured with normal, integrated RAID, pop in the installation DVD and go... it's dead simple as AFAIK not one person has had any issues with it. Our interns have done quite a few installs, no issues with the stock installation procedures across several versions.
Same with Hyper-V, so that point may be on par but doesn't make things simpler at all. Or do I miss something?
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
But changing the technical platform to XS or any other (free) Hypervisor doesn't solve the licensing problem at all.
Except it does, because the biggest problem is Hyper-V licensing. So changing it does resolve that one. Even though there is no licensing for it, the fact that people think that there is, refuse to believe that there is not, makes it less confusing to use something else. There is no getting around that. It's not Hyper-V's fault, it's not MS' fault, it just is what it is... some sad industry myth that has taken on a life of its own.
This can also been seen the other way around: "Hey, I'm using a non MS Type-1 Hypervisor, I probably don't need any licenses for my Windows guests now! Awesome!"
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS.
But none where they are doing it normally. If you follow the normal, expected, "not trying to push it or reinvent the wheel" procedure, it's super simple. That means no SD card, no software RAID (they specifically hide this), no whatever. Just take a stock enterprise server like a DL380 or an R720 configured with normal, integrated RAID, pop in the installation DVD and go... it's dead simple as AFAIK not one person has had any issues with it. Our interns have done quite a few installs, no issues with the stock installation procedures across several versions.
Same with Hyper-V, so that point may be on par but doesn't make things simpler at all. Or do I miss something?
No, Hyper-V is not as simple. It's a good product, I'm not knocking it in ANY way. But it has a few points of complexity that whether its fault or the community's fault, make it harder. Same issues I listed above...
- It does not discourage software RAID but, in fact, through the community promotes it - and on a software RAID system that is poorly understood, has a terrible track record and is far too complex for the audience we are discussing. It is like FreeNAS and ZFS in this way that people are now starting to get confused as to if standard servers even work or if hardware RAID hards have to be pulled out or whatever. XenServer follows VMware's path here and "forces" newbies to do things a sensible way that is simple and understood. But unlike VMware still allows for experts to get tried and true enterprise software RAID if they so desire.
- It has the very, VERY confusing option to install via the "role" methodology. XS does not. There is no simple way to install XS encumbering it with things that should not be in the Dom0 or with licensing problems. Hyper-V doesn't just make this easy, it makes it the most obvious way to install.
- The licensing problem. For whatever reason, people can't figure out the licensing.
You can write off point three, there is value to ignoring it. But either point one or two on their own is more than enough to make Hyper-V rather a bit more complex for a newbie to use than XenServer. It simply requires you to know too much, understand too many things and not listen to all of the hype than can exist to be as simple as XS.
XS has one known point of complexity on a stock install... you have to know to choose thin provisioning up front. It REALLY sucks that they left that decision there, but it's very easy to address and doesn't cause the same level of issues and only exists for local installs.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
This can also been seen the other way around: "Hey, I'm using a non MS Type-1 Hypervisor, I probably don't need any licenses for my Windows guests now! Awesome!"
Could be except for two simple facts...
- That doesn't happen, ever. It just doesn't so this isn't applicable.
- Any risk of that happening would also carry over to Hyper-V so this isn't a unique risk, it's one that we would expect to be equal or worse for Hyper-V.
So I don't buy this one. If it did, we'd have this issue on VMware 100 times a day. And yet, I'm not aware of a single example of it ever happening on any platform while the Hyper-V issue is weekly or possibly daily within a much smaller subset of the same pool of IT pros.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
Everyone who deploys software has to make sure he understands licensing.
Should, but surprisingly few actually do. They might learn enough to know that they are compliant, but learning it well enough to apply that knowledge to decision making is surprisingly rare.
Than maybe that person probably doesn't know enough to do his/her job? Just owning a few pounds of uranium doesn't grant you the knowledge of building and running a nuclear power plant.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
This can also been seen the other way around: "Hey, I'm using a non MS Type-1 Hypervisor, I probably don't need any licenses for my Windows guests now! Awesome!"
Could be except for two simple facts...
- That doesn't happen, ever. It just doesn't so this isn't applicable.
- Any risk of that happening would also carry over to Hyper-V so this isn't a unique risk, it's one that we would expect to be equal or worse for Hyper-V.
So I don't buy this one. If it did, we'd have this issue on VMware 100 times a day. And yet, I'm not aware of a single example of it ever happening on any platform while the Hyper-V issue is weekly or possibly daily within a much smaller subset of the same pool of IT pros.
I'm not saying that this case is unique to XS
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
From a technical point of view, well, there are many threads here at ML with people having a hard time installing or upgrading XS.
But none where they are doing it normally. If you follow the normal, expected, "not trying to push it or reinvent the wheel" procedure, it's super simple. That means no SD card, no software RAID (they specifically hide this), no whatever. Just take a stock enterprise server like a DL380 or an R720 configured with normal, integrated RAID, pop in the installation DVD and go... it's dead simple as AFAIK not one person has had any issues with it. Our interns have done quite a few installs, no issues with the stock installation procedures across several versions.
Same with Hyper-V, so that point may be on par but doesn't make things simpler at all. Or do I miss something?
No, Hyper-V is not as simple. It's a good product, I'm not knocking it in ANY way. But it has a few points of complexity that whether its fault or the community's fault, make it harder. Same issues I listed above...
- It does not discourage software RAID but, in fact, through the community promotes it - and on a software RAID system that is poorly understood, has a terrible track record and is far too complex for the audience we are discussing. It is like FreeNAS and ZFS in this way that people are now starting to get confused as to if standard servers even work or if hardware RAID hards have to be pulled out or whatever. XenServer follows VMware's path here and "forces" newbies to do things a sensible way that is simple and understood. But unlike VMware still allows for experts to get tried and true enterprise software RAID if they so desire.
- It has the very, VERY confusing option to install via the "role" methodology. XS does not. There is no simple way to install XS encumbering it with things that should not be in the Dom0 or with licensing problems. Hyper-V doesn't just make this easy, it makes it the most obvious way to install.
- The licensing problem. For whatever reason, people can't figure out the licensing.
You can write off point three, there is value to ignoring it. But either point one or two on their own is more than enough to make Hyper-V rather a bit more complex for a newbie to use than XenServer. It simply requires you to know too much, understand too many things and not listen to all of the hype than can exist to be as simple as XS.
XS has one known point of complexity on a stock install... you have to know to choose thin provisioning up front. It REALLY sucks that they left that decision there, but it's very easy to address and doesn't cause the same level of issues and only exists for local installs.
Same here. XS is a great product, for sure. But it has its own complexity: dom0 confuses alot of people and that thin provisioning thing may be something a lot of newcomers might run into. HyperV got its own problems for sure, the snapshot rollback/apply/delete wording they are using isn't great at all.
At the end of the day, both are great products and far superior to ESXi free.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
Everyone who deploys software has to make sure he understands licensing.
Should, but surprisingly few actually do. They might learn enough to know that they are compliant, but learning it well enough to apply that knowledge to decision making is surprisingly rare.
Than maybe that person probably doesn't know enough to do his/her job? Just owning a few pounds of uranium doesn't grant you the knowledge of building and running a nuclear power plant.
That's fine. But it's the base of the industry. So I'm totally with you, I think that over 50% of all people working in IT should be eliminated and that the remaining staff should be consolidated into mostly outsourced firms and IT be taken more seriously with fewer people doing more and better work. I'm 100% on board.
But in the real world for real IT pros today actually doing virtualization for the SMB market, Hyper-V is causing real world confusion today in ways that actively make it harder to people to use.
Basically... here is the crux of the problem...
For anyone that struggles with virtualization to a level where there is any appreciable differentiation between the four enterprise platforms, Hyper-V is confusing. So either they are all equal, or Hyper-V is confusing.
My point was that @Breffni-Potter felt that Hyper-V was intrinsically easier for this specific pool of people (actually a pool even below the one I'm talking about) and my point what that I felt that this was backwards. So in the context of this discusion, yes, IT pros are EXTREMELY confused by all of this.
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
This can also been seen the other way around: "Hey, I'm using a non MS Type-1 Hypervisor, I probably don't need any licenses for my Windows guests now! Awesome!"
Could be except for two simple facts...
- That doesn't happen, ever. It just doesn't so this isn't applicable.
- Any risk of that happening would also carry over to Hyper-V so this isn't a unique risk, it's one that we would expect to be equal or worse for Hyper-V.
So I don't buy this one. If it did, we'd have this issue on VMware 100 times a day. And yet, I'm not aware of a single example of it ever happening on any platform while the Hyper-V issue is weekly or possibly daily within a much smaller subset of the same pool of IT pros.
I'm not saying that this case is unique to XS
I understand that, but you were implying that it was true to "all non-Hyper-V". But my points were based on that assumption. It still doesn't happen (notice I mentioned VMware as the example, not XS) at all, and it would have the same effect on Hyper-V many times more with this reaction: "hey I got an MS hypervisor so all MS licenses are now free."
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@thwr said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
Same here. XS is a great product, for sure. But it has its own complexity: dom0 confuses alot of people and that thin provisioning thing may be something a lot of newcomers might run into. HyperV got its own problems for sure, the snapshot rollback/apply/delete wording they are using isn't great at all.
Dom0 isn't as confusing because... to newbies it does not exist. It just doesn't. It's "under the hood" and has no licensing concerns or impressions or confusion. XenServer is one product, it's not broken up like Hyper-V. Yes the thin provisioning thing is rough, no getting around that. But the Dom0 thing... newbies don't encounter that at all. They have to dig under the hood and try to figure out how it works to find out about that at all. XS, when installed by default, is a complete appliance that is super simple.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
in the real world, actual Windows admins are really, really unable to figure Hyper-V out. They are totally lost (at least in nearly all cases over the years that I've seen.. and it is a huge majority
Really? Wow. It's hardly rocket science. What is wrong with these people? Maybe I should become a Windows admin and blow these people away.
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@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
in the real world, actual Windows admins are really, really unable to figure Hyper-V out. They are totally lost (at least in nearly all cases over the years that I've seen..
Now, that's an exaggeration, and I beg to differ ...
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Here's a handy document from MS ... hoping this'll help reduce the confusion
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TL;DR
The confusion comes in when you try to explain that with Standard Server licensing, you can install a physical copy, and 2 VMs so long as there are no services besides Hyper-V on the physical system.
They just don't understand it because "watch I can install other stuff here as well".
If you take away Hyper-V (specifically as a role on a Server OS rather than bare bones Hyper-V) "You're entitled to run 2 VMs with that single product key" Pretty simple right?
It all goes back to the "physical install for the Hyper-visor setup that seems to catch everyone who is confused about this.
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@Veet said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
in the real world, actual Windows admins are really, really unable to figure Hyper-V out. They are totally lost (at least in nearly all cases over the years that I've seen..
Now, that's an exaggeration, and I beg to differ ...
Follow the topic on SW. It's really bad. And has been for years. Hundreds and hundreds of topics of people having no idea why they are doing what they are doing and not knowing what the outcome will be or, worse, was.
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@Carnival-Boy said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@scottalanmiller said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
in the real world, actual Windows admins are really, really unable to figure Hyper-V out. They are totally lost (at least in nearly all cases over the years that I've seen.. and it is a huge majority
Really? Wow. It's hardly rocket science. What is wrong with these people? Maybe I should become a Windows admin and blow these people away.
I'm being serious, it's nearly that bad. It's improving a little, but only a little, but I don't think it is improving so much from understanding as just Hyper-V is "moving up the stack" as it gets to be a better product more higher end people are deploying it more often and there is more and more corpus of "hey, this is how this works" which eventually starts to help people here and there. But even today, I still see the problems of people being confused by the same basics nearly every time.
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I will mention that when I took Windows Server classes in college, we were using Windows Server 2008 R2 and installing the Hyper-V role. It wasn't until after college that I realized there was an actual free version called "Hyper-V Server".
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@Jstear said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I will mention that when I took Windows Server classes in college, we were using Windows Server 2008 R2 and installing the Hyper-V role. It wasn't until after college that I realized there was an actual free version called "Hyper-V Server".
Because.... College.
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@Reid-Cooper said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
@Jstear said in Why is Hyper-V More Confusing:
I will mention that when I took Windows Server classes in college, we were using Windows Server 2008 R2 and installing the Hyper-V role. It wasn't until after college that I realized there was an actual free version called "Hyper-V Server".
Because.... College.
Nah, I think that is pretty much the problem everyone has, and the root of a lot of this.
