When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?
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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.
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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?:
@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.
You are right, it's great thinking. But it isn't what we are talking about. We're not seeing how what you are doing helps the employees go home early, we only see how it makes IT less valuable to the business and makes the business less competitive.
If your key concern was employee happiness, wouldn't you keep them at home full time and let them work whenever it makes sense? That's what both @JaredBusch and I do with our staff. So to you, you are being nice and letting people go home early and spending extra money to let them do that. But to us, you are not giving your staff flexibility to be home all the time and making them have less leverage for better benefits by lowering their value to the business (and ergo lowering the value of the business.)
I get that you want to let them go home and forget about work. But that sounds less than ideal to me. Working for the Fortune 100, I had it better. I totally appreciate the feel that you think you are being really nice, but I feel like you might be missing the big picture or at least not seeing why we don't see it as giving the employees anything while the business pays for something of possibly no value.
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@scottalanmiller said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@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.
Either way, if they have it already, like us, it can be highly available with no additional cost as you can use availability groups. If they don't have it and done need it, again, can be free by not using it and getting MySQL clustered db.
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@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
@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.
Why let people work from home? If home has no value, why would they want to go home at all? If home is a benefit, isn't letting them be home to work huge?
I don't go home to escape work, I LIKE being home.
You word this like you are giving them some special benefit. But I still see "go to the office to to keep them from getting to be home." And "spending money without any visible benefit." I don't see how you are giving them one minute of additional home or family time.
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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?:
@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.
With this... you don't have to migrate servers at all. Why cant you see that. You can set HAProxy to point to the webserver on node 2, and run powershell to move the availability group to the SQL Server on node 2... then you can do whatever the hell you want to node 1. No need to migrate anything....... BUT.... if you wanted to, you still can as Hyper-V has the ability to move a VM from node1, to node2, without shares storage at all, for FREE! VMWare needs vMotion, which was NOT.
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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?:
@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.
With this... you don't have to migrate servers at all. Why cant you see that. You can set HAProxy to point to the webserver on node 2, and run powershell to move the availability group to the SQL Server on node 2... then you can do whatever the hell you want to node 1. No need to migrate anything....... BUT.... if you wanted to, you still can as Hyper-V has the ability to move a VM from node1, to node2, without shares storage at all, for FREE! VMWare needs vMotion, which was NOT.
Yes, if you have two copies of everything you certainly get benefits. No question there. It is only "how much is that worth." Downtime in the SMB is normally free or nearly so.
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@scottalanmiller 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?:
@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.
You are right, it's great thinking. But it isn't what we are talking about. We're not seeing how what you are doing helps the employees go home early, we only see how it makes IT less valuable to the business and makes the business less competitive.
If your key concern was employee happiness, wouldn't you keep them at home full time and let them work whenever it makes sense? That's what both @JaredBusch and I do with our staff. So to you, you are being nice and letting people go home early and spending extra money to let them do that. But to us, you are not giving your staff flexibility to be home all the time and making them have less leverage for better benefits by lowering their value to the business (and ergo lowering the value of the business.)
I get that you want to let them go home and forget about work. But that sounds less than ideal to me. Working for the Fortune 100, I had it better. I totally appreciate the feel that you think you are being really nice, but I feel like you might be missing the big picture or at least not seeing why we don't see it as giving the employees anything while the business pays for something of possibly no value.
I'm not from fortune 100 perspective. I'm from SMB perspective. Regardless of what I want, most SMBs want arses in seats during the normal business day. Therefore, since they have to be 8am - 5pm, because companies want people I seats, when they go home...... they go home.
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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?:
@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.
You are right, it's great thinking. But it isn't what we are talking about. We're not seeing how what you are doing helps the employees go home early, we only see how it makes IT less valuable to the business and makes the business less competitive.
If your key concern was employee happiness, wouldn't you keep them at home full time and let them work whenever it makes sense? That's what both @JaredBusch and I do with our staff. So to you, you are being nice and letting people go home early and spending extra money to let them do that. But to us, you are not giving your staff flexibility to be home all the time and making them have less leverage for better benefits by lowering their value to the business (and ergo lowering the value of the business.)
I get that you want to let them go home and forget about work. But that sounds less than ideal to me. Working for the Fortune 100, I had it better. I totally appreciate the feel that you think you are being really nice, but I feel like you might be missing the big picture or at least not seeing why we don't see it as giving the employees anything while the business pays for something of possibly no value.
I'm not from fortune 100 perspective. I'm from SMB perspective. Regardless of what I want, most SMBs want arses in seats during the normal business day. Therefore, since they have to be 8am - 5pm, because companies want people I seats, when they go home...... they go home.
Right, so the issue is that you have a bad culture that doesn't value the people and you are working to curtail that as much as possible. I kind of get that, but would management feel the same way if IT was being more aggressively valuable? Has IT ever presented what reckless spending that is for the company to do and how against the interests of the business it is? Is the business aware that it is paying thousands of dollars in licensing for that one bit of bad culture?
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@Jimmy9008 When i need to do off hours maintenance, like on the weekends, I goto the boss and say, "Im going to be here 8hours this weekend, so i am taking half days on Thurs/Friday."
Any reasonable employer should accept this trade-off. -
@Jimmy9008 said in When to use VMWare over free hypervisors?:
I'm not from fortune 100 perspective. I'm from SMB perspective. Regardless of what I want, most SMBs want arses in seats during the normal business day.
Jared and I are both SMB, but definitely value business over arses in seats. It's better for the business, it's better for the employees. Everyone wins. There is no downside.
