When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I cannot see any way on their site to purchase any less than this, and get vMotion, which was the initial start of the whole darn thread.
It was? That was just one random comment by Dustin who didn't know what vMotion even was nor that it was a commodity feature, like HA, on every platform.
vMotion does require a three node purchase, but it also requires at least two nodes just to exist theoretically. And yes, Essentials Plus is the first with any significant functionality (and support.) It is the cheaper level you would ever realistically consider.
here is a good guide...
https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/VMware_vSphere_6_Editions_Overview
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
with VMWare at 5k a pop
FFS, you have no idea WTF you are talking about. Stop arguing and go learn. Then you can discuss instead of argue.
This is the product right?
£4712 with VAT... not far out of the 5k I said no?
So where are you saying I'm wrong here?
Are you happy know? @scottalanmiller answered for me.
- That is the cost for 3 hosts not 1.
- You don't do HA at the platform and at the Application without some really damned good reasons.
- And IMO, you have not even given a valid reason for any type of HA.
I cannot see any way on their site to purchase any less than this, and get vMotion, which was the initial start of the whole darn thread. Only that stage an up, when checking out to buy, says it comes with vMotion. Even if I need 2 hosts, with VMWare I must get that product at that price.
With Hyper-V, you can move a VM live between nodes... for free.
Why on earth would I buy VMWare, at that price, for that feature, the only feature suggested at the time... when I can get it for free!
I believe @scottalanmiller has already corrected your misunderstandings from @DustinB3403 going south.
So you are correct. You do not need VMWare for that functionality, use Hyper-V.
But none of that answers the more appropriate question. Do you need HA? If so, at what layer?
Both. I already said why.
Mr CEO, I want to double our licensing costs and double our hardware costs so I don't have to schedule maintenance windows.
No. Two nodes for hyperv. Or two nodes for VMWare... its still two nodes. Same cost.
Linux for HAProxys, free. Linux for webservers, free. MySQL cluster... also free (I think)...
ALL ENTIRELY FREE.And now, without spending the money for VMWare you can do what you need when you need as long as you don't prat around and turn both MySQL cluster VMs off. Or both webservers etc.
So you are smart and handled the application level with zero cost. your earlier examples were always IIS and MS SQL.
But you do not get HA from two servers like this. You ARE talking about simple VM migration while running. That is not and has never been HA.
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@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
with VMWare at 5k a pop
FFS, you have no idea WTF you are talking about. Stop arguing and go learn. Then you can discuss instead of argue.
This is the product right?
£4712 with VAT... not far out of the 5k I said no?
So where are you saying I'm wrong here?
Are you happy know? @scottalanmiller answered for me.
- That is the cost for 3 hosts not 1.
- You don't do HA at the platform and at the Application without some really damned good reasons.
- And IMO, you have not even given a valid reason for any type of HA.
I cannot see any way on their site to purchase any less than this, and get vMotion, which was the initial start of the whole darn thread. Only that stage an up, when checking out to buy, says it comes with vMotion. Even if I need 2 hosts, with VMWare I must get that product at that price.
With Hyper-V, you can move a VM live between nodes... for free.
Why on earth would I buy VMWare, at that price, for that feature, the only feature suggested at the time... when I can get it for free!
I believe @scottalanmiller has already corrected your misunderstandings from @DustinB3403 going south.
So you are correct. You do not need VMWare for that functionality, use Hyper-V.
But none of that answers the more appropriate question. Do you need HA? If so, at what layer?
Both. I already said why.
Mr CEO, I want to double our licensing costs and double our hardware costs so I don't have to schedule maintenance windows.
No. Two nodes for hyperv. Or two nodes for VMWare... its still two nodes. Same cost.
Linux for HAProxys, free. Linux for webservers, free. MySQL cluster... also free (I think)...
ALL ENTIRELY FREE.And now, without spending the money for VMWare you can do what you need when you need as long as you don't prat around and turn both MySQL cluster VMs off. Or both webservers etc.
So you are smart and handled the application level with zero cost. your earlier examples were always IIS and MS SQL.
But you do not get HA from two servers like this. You ARE talking about simple VM migration while running. That is not and has never been HA.
Yes they did mention IIS and SQL Svr.
If I buy windows server standard, I can run 2 x VMs on a hyper V host. One = IIS. The other, windows server with then SQL Svr. HAProxy on CentOS would be free.
Then buy the second hosts, again license for Windows server standard.
The only expensive part here is the SQL Svr licenses. BUT... with standard I'm allowed a second install to make use of always on availability groups for high availability. So even then, this is only:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
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@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
Being able to do maintenance business as usual, during the day, on VMs and on hosts, is a valid reason. Entirely valid. Especially as it can be done as and when needed, with no affect on customers at all.
That reason has a cost associated to it. That cost is very, very, often not justified by when real numbers are crunched.
Even on Wall St., we could not justify that. All patching and installations were after hours.
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@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I cannot see any way on their site to purchase any less than this, and get vMotion, which was the initial start of the whole darn thread.
It was? That was just one random comment by Dustin who didn't know what vMotion even was nor that it was a commodity feature, like HA, on every platform.
vMotion does require a three node purchase, but it also requires at least two nodes just to exist theoretically. And yes, Essentials Plus is the first with any significant functionality (and support.) It is the cheaper level you would ever realistically consider.
here is a good guide...
https://www.thomas-krenn.com/en/wiki/VMware_vSphere_6_Editions_Overview
Thanks @scottalanmiller I will take a read of that. Yes, that was how it started. The op said tell me why VMWare etc... and one of the first comments was vMotion. Which means you need that license etc and back where we were at the start of the day lol
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
Well, plus the second server. This stuff adds up. It is almost half the cost to not have the HA, and nearly all of the cost for Windows.
In percentage of total cost, it's enormous. Is it a lot for the needs of the business, no way to tell. But in the SMB, those are absolutely big numbers to most companies.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
MySQL cluster... also free (I think)...
It's called Galera, yes it is free.
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@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
Well, plus the second server. This stuff adds up. It is almost half the cost to not have the HA, and nearly all of the cost for Windows.
In percentage of total cost, it's enormous. Is it a lot for the needs of the business, no way to tell. But in the SMB, those are absolutely big numbers to most companies.
No. Those are the total licenses. You don't need to duplicate that number for the second server.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I guess we are going to have to disagree on this. The flexibility being able to do maintenance as and when, during the day, on both VMs (as we have application level HA), and hardware (as we have hardware level HA) is very important. We are able to do what we need when we need, without having to plan downtime or hold off on changes to fit in to a schedule. Having expensive admins stay late to do work adds up, when if its BAU during the day as its all HA, for very little extra work, you make savings and can be more agile.
If you have 24x7 needs, that can make sense. But admins after hours is free in all but the oddest of cases. Literally no cost at all 99% of the time.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
Well, plus the second server. This stuff adds up. It is almost half the cost to not have the HA, and nearly all of the cost for Windows.
In percentage of total cost, it's enormous. Is it a lot for the needs of the business, no way to tell. But in the SMB, those are absolutely big numbers to most companies.
No. Those are the total licenses. You don't need to duplicate that number for the second server.
You do, except for SQL Server. Windows gives you two VMs per host. You need two hosts of licenses instead of one. That's double.
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@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I guess we are going to have to disagree on this. The flexibility being able to do maintenance as and when, during the day, on both VMs (as we have application level HA), and hardware (as we have hardware level HA) is very important. We are able to do what we need when we need, without having to plan downtime or hold off on changes to fit in to a schedule. Having expensive admins stay late to do work adds up, when if its BAU during the day as its all HA, for very little extra work, you make savings and can be more agile.
If you have 24x7 needs, that can make sense. But admins after hours is free in all but the oddest of cases. Literally no cost at all 99% of the time.
Sadly, that is often the case. But I like to be better than that. I don't want my teams staying late to do work. They have family. Go home. Here, you can do what you need during your normal day. Go home without a phone always on. Turn off and chill. That is an important thing.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I guess we are going to have to disagree on this. The flexibility being able to do maintenance as and when, during the day, on both VMs (as we have application level HA), and hardware (as we have hardware level HA) is very important. We are able to do what we need when we need, without having to plan downtime or hold off on changes to fit in to a schedule. Having expensive admins stay late to do work adds up, when if its BAU during the day as its all HA, for very little extra work, you make savings and can be more agile.
If you have 24x7 needs, that can make sense. But admins after hours is free in all but the oddest of cases. Literally no cost at all 99% of the time.
Sadly, that is often the case. But I like to be better than that. I don't want my teams staying late to do work. They have family. Go home. Here, you can do what you need during your normal day. Go home without a phone always on. Turn off and chill. That is an important thing.
That is horrible business process thinking.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
Sadly, that is often the case. But I like to be better than that. I don't want my teams staying late to do work. They have family. Go home. Here, you can do what you need during your normal day. Go home without a phone always on. Turn off and chill. That is an important thing.
It is, but how much time are we talking about here? We did this on Wall St. with tens of thousands of servers and by doing so gave us more time and flexibility to be with our families the rest of the week. Yeah, we had to be flexible one night a week, but who cares. We could schedule around it, it made the rest of our time better.
It saved the company money, by tons, and had no negative impact on our lives. As an admin, I see zero downside to it. But if I don't have that little flexibility, it makes me far less valuable as an employee and that means lower income and that does impact my family. One way or another, the admins are the ones that pay for those systems of that nature.
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Why would the admins need to be in the office to do this work? Why wouldn't they do it from home anyway? Admins, of all roles, have no need to be in an office for anything.
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Seems to me if you have 3 hosts or more, and want expert support and many integration options, VMware is a solid option.
With less than 3 hosts, XS(for example) you can update the host and it will migrate running vms to other host(vms on shared storage, it will shutdown vms on local host storage) after updates then reboot. You then apply patches to other host and it migrates the vms back to first host. -
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
Well, plus the second server. This stuff adds up. It is almost half the cost to not have the HA, and nearly all of the cost for Windows.
In percentage of total cost, it's enormous. Is it a lot for the needs of the business, no way to tell. But in the SMB, those are absolutely big numbers to most companies.
No. Those are the total licenses. You don't need to duplicate that number for the second server.
You do, except for SQL Server. Windows gives you two VMs per host. You need two hosts of licenses instead of one. That's double.
Node1: Windows Server License x 1 = 2 VMs of Windows Server allowed.
VM1 = Windows Server Standard with IIS.
VM2 = Windows Server Standard with SQL Svr Standard. (1 copy of SQL Svr standard allows you to install SQL Server on a second windows server standard, for free, and use high availability groups for the database).Node2: Windows Server License x 1
VM1 = Windows Server Standard with IIS
VM2 = Windows Server Standard (with the allowed free version of SQL Server for high availability groups).In total... 2 copies of Windows Server Standard with SA (£1800 total), plus 1 x SQL Server set of licenses for however many cores you want to license.
Yes, SQL Server is expensive... but its something most SMBs have and the standard version allows you to get to a highly available application level setup.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
2 x Windows Server Standard with SA.
1 x SQL Svr, 4 core.
Done....WOW... so expensive!
Well, plus the second server. This stuff adds up. It is almost half the cost to not have the HA, and nearly all of the cost for Windows.
In percentage of total cost, it's enormous. Is it a lot for the needs of the business, no way to tell. But in the SMB, those are absolutely big numbers to most companies.
No. Those are the total licenses. You don't need to duplicate that number for the second server.
You do, except for SQL Server. Windows gives you two VMs per host. You need two hosts of licenses instead of one. That's double.
Node1: Windows Server License x 1 = 2 VMs of Windows Server allowed.
VM1 = Windows Server Standard with IIS.
VM2 = Windows Server Standard with SQL Svr Standard. (1 copy of SQL Svr standard allows you to install SQL Server on a second windows server standard, for free, and use high availability groups for the database).Node2: Windows Server License x 1
VM1 = Windows Server Standard with IIS
VM2 = Windows Server Standard (with the allowed free version of SQL Server for high availability groups).In total... 2 copies of Windows Server Standard with SA (£1800 total), plus 1 x SQL Server set of licenses for however many cores you want to license.
Yes, SQL Server is expensive... but its something most SMBs have and the standard version allows you to get to a highly available application level setup.
No, this is wrong.
You have to double everything if you ever think you are going to migrate servers for routine maintenance.
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@JaredBusch said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I guess we are going to have to disagree on this. The flexibility being able to do maintenance as and when, during the day, on both VMs (as we have application level HA), and hardware (as we have hardware level HA) is very important. We are able to do what we need when we need, without having to plan downtime or hold off on changes to fit in to a schedule. Having expensive admins stay late to do work adds up, when if its BAU during the day as its all HA, for very little extra work, you make savings and can be more agile.
If you have 24x7 needs, that can make sense. But admins after hours is free in all but the oddest of cases. Literally no cost at all 99% of the time.
Sadly, that is often the case. But I like to be better than that. I don't want my teams staying late to do work. They have family. Go home. Here, you can do what you need during your normal day. Go home without a phone always on. Turn off and chill. That is an important thing.
That is horrible business process thinking.
How? How on earth is me wanting teams to go home and forget work as were 'good' horrible? Are your subordinates nothing to you?! Insane. How many hosts on Spiceworks do we get about employers asking for unreasonable out of hours from their overworked staff... that is horrible.
Wanting staff to go home and forget about work and enjoy their time is absolutely not horrible in any way.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
Yes, SQL Server is expensive... but its something most SMBs have and the standard version allows you to get to a highly available application level setup.
That most SMBs do things badly is never viable justification for something. That doesn't mean that SQL Server is wrong for you, I'm just saying that 1% or 99% of SMBs using it matters zero to you. It's the value of it TO YOU that matters and nothing else.
Most SMBs have it as a mistake. Mostly because they were sold on SQL Server Express and once trapped got stuck. We see this on SW every day, SQL Server is one of the worst things to see an SMB deploying because they never tell their management what the long term lock in and cost are going to end up being nor tell anyone that free alternatives with all the same power exist.
SQL Server is a great product, but like VMware has almost no place in the SMB. All of the logic for why VMware is expensive applies equally to SQL Server. All that cost, what did you get for it?
The one legit reason I see for SQL Server in the SMB is if a key application that is not bespoke depends on it AND was justified with the Windows, SQL Server and debt costs included. I've never seen an SMB do this, but that's the one acceptable scenario for it.
The alternatives are free, both for the OS and the high availability. So that SQL Server Standard lets you do that isn't really any more of a benefit than ESXi vMotion is.
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@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
Why would the admins need to be in the office to do this work? Why wouldn't they do it from home anyway? Admins, of all roles, have no need to be in an office for anything.
Well, they could do it from home... but why. At night, at home - that is their time. I want them to do things they want to do in their own time. That's why they are home. In the office, they can do what they need with no downtime to service at all.
