Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
You talk to people like they already know everything but are choosing to ignore certain facts and then ask them why in the world they would make such an assumption, in what I assume is a subconscious attempt to set yourself up to sound like the smart guy. It's very frustrating.
Or, maybe I'm trying to help you figure out why you are making assumptions. How would I help you most - by just telling you you are wrong and acting like I know everything? by berating you with "facts" based on how I assume you were wrong? Or by asking you to provide the foundation for your assumptions
Assumptions are one of the biggest stumbling blocks in IT. Our field is full of them and they make good decision making almost impossible. Learning to look at out assumptions, question them, and dig in to figure out if they are valid or not is very, very important.
In this case, you approached with a number of assumptions - like that XS was active (maybe it is, but it doesn't appear to be and the terrible 7.2 release is one of the reasons that we feel this way) or that XS was a hypervisor, or that XS was one of the big three, that you didn't present until quite far along. Now, I think it is worth looking at why you felt these were good assumptions. What was their source? Maybe you have a bad source of info. Maybe you are processing good info in a bad way. Maybe I'm wrong and they are all good assumptions.
It's impossible to know what assumptions you are basing decisions on until they are stated. Once stated, often they are worth testing to see if they are valid. You'd be amazed how many IT issues we resolve simply by removing a bad assumption that was never mentioned.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
Now I am only looking at XenServer for the first time and since it's one of the three main free hypervisors, I wanted to consider using it unless there's a really clear reason not to. You say it's a ghost ship with major issues that haven't been fixed, so that's at least something. But I have other people suggesting I use it. You can see why I'm questioning what you say about it being dead right??
XS is not a hypervisor. XS is a specific distribution of Xen. Xen is the hypervisor. Xen is the oldest, but by far the fourth place, of the four main hypervisors.
It's fine to question why we feel it is dead. It's how you present things like the website as if a commercial vendor trying to make a quick buck is an indicator as to the engineering of a project. That requires me to either ignore the point, or explain why companies put up websites to make money and how software gets abandoned.
If you want to know why we feel it is dead, I would suggest asking more like "Oh, I had the impression it was still active, what are the indicators that make you feel it is dead." Instead of challenging with marketing and sales resources from a vendor.
Does that make sense?
blinks
Let me ask this then: Is Xen dead? Is Xen free? Should I use Xen as an alternative to KVM or Hyper-V?
Xen is free, totally free in every sense. Xen is technically superior to XS because XS is so crippled and poorly handled, but XS is neatly packaged. Xen is not dead, but it is certainly struggling. It was the first enterprise hypervisor, now it is in fourth place, with a big gap between it and third. Xen is attempting to reinvent itself as an embedded application containment technology.
In reality, as much as I love Xen, no, I don't think that you should investigate it at this point. Hyper-V and KVM are also free and cover the bases that you would want. Xen is just... more. ESXi is the other big player, and while sort of free, isn't in any practical sense.
Xen is great tech and I hope that they find ways to keep it alive. But for practical real world use, it's era just ended.
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Citrix may always surprise us by reversing their course with XS, but there is no indicator of it. Citrix has never treated XS well, but a few years ago they went totally free with it and it looked like it was set to explode. We were very hopeful and XS had a bunch of tech that no one else had for free back then. But XS essentially totally stalled at that point and other than a few small fixes, essentially nothing has happened to it in years and it is still crippled by decade old and really simple problems. Citrix has distanced themselves from it more and more over time and updates have actually gotten less and less.
Xen itself rolls out regular updates, but with a basically evaporated user base. It's sad, but with KVM and Hyper-V being free and supported by everyone, Xen just doesn't have a niche to fill.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
You talk to people like they already know everything but are choosing to ignore certain facts and then ask them why in the world they would make such an assumption, in what I assume is a subconscious attempt to set yourself up to sound like the smart guy. It's very frustrating.
Or, maybe I'm trying to help you figure out why you are making assumptions. How would I help you most - by just telling you you are wrong and acting like I know everything? by berating you with "facts" based on how I assume you were wrong? Or by asking you to provide the foundation for your assumptions
Assumptions are one of the biggest stumbling blocks in IT. Our field is full of them and they make good decision making almost impossible. Learning to look at out assumptions, question them, and dig in to figure out if they are valid or not is very, very important.
In this case, you approached with a number of assumptions - like that XS was active (maybe it is, but it doesn't appear to be and the terrible 7.2 release is one of the reasons that we feel this way) or that XS was a hypervisor, or that XS was one of the big three, that you didn't present until quite far along. Now, I think it is worth looking at why you felt these were good assumptions. What was their source? Maybe you have a bad source of info. Maybe you are processing good info in a bad way. Maybe I'm wrong and they are all good assumptions.
It's impossible to know what assumptions you are basing decisions on until they are stated. Once stated, often they are worth testing to see if they are valid. You'd be amazed how many IT issues we resolve simply by removing a bad assumption that was never mentioned.
I don't know man... you could have just given me some specific examples or sources that show how the latest releases of XS are terrible. Although, to be fair, I didn't even realize how it was different that Xen. I'm sure that's common...
I can't question every single assumption and meticulously double check every single thing I look at as that would be endless rabbit holes. Plain and simple: I assumed XenServer was still a thing because I've seen it talked about in numerous threads, there has been a recent release and their website makes no mention that they are no longer supporting their project.
Now what you are suggesting is almost that they are being deceptive in maintaining their website and software in an attempt to continue to take in money, but not really provide acceptable support for their product. ANY other company could be doing that. You could say Microsoft is doing that on a larger scale. They release updates that break things sometimes. Does that mean that I should stop and say, wait a minute, I think this project is dead and I will no longer use Microsoft products? Yes? No? I don't know.
It's not like I just blindly downloaded XS and installed it without doing anything else. I've tried to get information. I've read the information on their website. I don't have endless amounts of time to dump into a full blown investigation to determine if their platform is actually dead or not.
I don't have any more hair to rip out.
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Sadly, for Xen, XS was its only really nice full features distro and XS was not cared for by its steward. Suse continues to support "pure" Xen but it is a lot more complex than using a distro like XS. For shops with that special Xen need, it's out there. But it's mostly for large enterprises that are going to build an in house Xen team and provide their own support.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
Now what you are suggesting is almost that they are being deceptive in maintaining their website and software in an attempt to continue to take in money, but not really provide acceptable support for their product. ANY other company could be doing that. You could say Microsoft is doing that on a larger scale. They release updates that break things sometimes. Does that mean that I should stop and say, wait a minute, I think this project is dead and I will no longer use Microsoft products? Yes? No? I don't know.
It's not quite that bad, but it's bad. MS is famous for NOT doing things like this. But the average software company does, it's one of the reasons that IT is so important, we are the only line of defense to evaluate these kinds of things when looking at new software products for our company. This is why IT should always get to evaluate software first, before any other department gets to see it - because if IT says it is dead or doesn't meet basic standards, nothing should override that. We have info and concerns that others gloss over or ignore.
It's not that Citrix won't support you, but everyone has a different definition of support (see many Ubuntu discussions about what support means.) Supporting you can mean providing an L1 installation guy that helps you get up and running wit it and nothing more. Support doesn't imply active engineers keeping the product viable for the future. But we often assume that when we hear support. But it is a bad assumption, one that marketing counts on. and leverages a lot.
Patches that break things would indicate a very alive project, not a dead one. It's a problem, but a totally different problem.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
Sadly, for Xen, XS was its only really nice full features distro and XS was not cared for by its steward. Suse continues to support "pure" Xen but it is a lot more complex than using a distro like XS. For shops with that special Xen need, it's out there. But it's mostly for large enterprises that are going to build an in house Xen team and provide their own support.
ok. Well thanks for the info. I really want Hyper-V to work but if I can't get it working, I will try KVM.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
I don't know man... you could have just given me some specific examples or sources that show how the latest releases of XS are terrible. Although, to be fair, I didn't even realize how it was different that Xen. I'm sure that's common...
But at what point? You led off saying that you didn't doubt that it was dead, and were only questioning why Citrix would put up a site. So I was giving specific information about why dead projects often have live sites to make a quick buck.
I don't think that there was ever an appropriate time to just volunteer a bunch of background on Citrix. The discussion never went ot that place.
If you look back at the thread and look at where information was injected, I think you'd see that there isn't a place where that would have made sense. Because injecting it too early would have been inapproriate, and by the time you were asking "why" you were presenting the reasons that you felt it wasn't dead so the discussion was arond those points, not XS' deadness. If that makes sense.
If you do see a place where it would have made sense and I've missed it, show me where and I'll try to adjust. I'm just not sure at what point that would havae been in this case.
And it isn't that the releases make the product terrible - it's that the releases are terrible in the sense that they do essentially nothing. Just empty releases that deliver nothing of value (or effort) to customers.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
I can't question every single assumption and meticulously double check every single thing I look at as that would be endless rabbit holes. Plain and simple: I assumed XenServer was still a thing because I've seen it talked about in numerous threads, there has been a recent release and their website makes no mention that they are no longer supporting their project.
Double checking each thing is not what is needed. But it is looking at assumptions and figuring out if they are real or just assumptions. Or what they are based on. For example...
Did you talk to people who were up to date on XS? Were the threads in the last six months? Last year? This stuff has been changing fast. XS has tanked in the last year, KVM has taken off. Currency is a big deal here. Even if you talked to well informed, well meaning people, if they were not completely current and actively looking into XS actively, they might have no idea where the market is going.
In some cases, a project can die in a day. TrueCrypt did. One day, from fully active to totally gone. XS is nothing like that, it's a slow slide. But currency is a big deal.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
It's not like I just blindly downloaded XS and installed it without doing anything else. I've tried to get information. I've read the information on their website. I don't have endless amounts of time to dump into a full blown investigation to determine if their platform is actually dead or not.
I don't have any more hair to rip out.
Of course not, that's why no IT department should be less than ... well a lot of people. No one has the time to investigate this stuff. IT should always be a team. And IT should not investigate all options, there isn't time for that. Quickly determining projects that aren't currently viable (too early, too late, bad idea, bad vendor, etc.) is an important piece of that. Rule things out and move on. ESXi is easy to rule out of rthe average SMB due to cost and licensing overhead, as an example. Rule out, move on.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
Sadly, for Xen, XS was its only really nice full features distro and XS was not cared for by its steward. Suse continues to support "pure" Xen but it is a lot more complex than using a distro like XS. For shops with that special Xen need, it's out there. But it's mostly for large enterprises that are going to build an in house Xen team and provide their own support.
ok. Well thanks for the info. I really want Hyper-V to work but if I can't get it working, I will try KVM.
Both are good. Hyper-V is generally better for most SMBs. But honestly, I prefer KVM a lot.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
It's not like I just blindly downloaded XS and installed it without doing anything else. I've tried to get information. I've read the information on their website. I don't have endless amounts of time to dump into a full blown investigation to determine if their platform is actually dead or not.
I don't have any more hair to rip out.
Of course not, that's why no IT department should be less than ... well a lot of people. No one has the time to investigate this stuff. IT should always be a team. And IT should not investigate all options, there isn't time for that. Quickly determining projects that aren't currently viable (too early, too late, bad idea, bad vendor, etc.) is an important piece of that. Rule things out and move on. ESXi is easy to rule out of rthe average SMB due to cost and licensing overhead, as an example. Rule out, move on.
lmao. And we have vSphere 6.5 in my SMB environment...
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So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Would this somehow be different than a case where someone installs Windows Server 2016 and then adds the Hyper-V role?
And I know it would probably eat up some CPU power, but I really only want to run a few tiny VM's..
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
And I know it would probably eat up some CPU power, but I really only want to run a few tiny VM's..
It's the licensening change that is the real issue.
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@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
See this is why I am so confused.
- I can go to Microsoft and download Windows Server 2016, which when you install it, has options to install as core or GUI. Either way, I have to pay for a license because it's not free, core or GUI, RIGHT?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016
- I can go to Microsoft and download the "evaluation" of Hyper-V Server 2016, which when I install, has the option to install standard evaluation, or desktop experience evaluation. I can just use the standard no GUI and it's 100% free, RIGHT?? So then what does it matter if I choose to install the free hypervisor with the desktop experience?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016
If both things are separate things, but installing the Desktop Experience means they are the same thing and I have to pay for a license to use Hyper-V, then I don't understand why they are selling them together... or wait is it because they want to rope you into having to pay them money??
Now I am not trying to make assumptions here or not thinking in a sensible GD way. I am just trying to navigate my way through options for installing Hyper-V, having it be free, and having it actually ****ing work.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
See this is why I am so confused.
- I can go to Microsoft and download Windows Server 2016, which when you install it, has options to install as core or GUI. Either way, I have to pay for a license because it's not free, core or GUI, RIGHT?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016
- I can go to Microsoft and download the "evaluation" of Hyper-V Server 2016, which when I install, has the option to install standard evaluation, or desktop experience evaluation. I can just use the standard no GUI and it's 100% free, RIGHT?? So then what does it matter if I choose to install the free hypervisor with the desktop experience?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016
If both things are separate things, but installing the Desktop Experience means they are the same thing and I have to pay for a license to use Hyper-V, then I don't understand why they are selling them together... or wait is it because they want money??
Now I am not trying to make assumptions here or not thinking in a sensible GD way. I am just trying to navigate my way through options for installing Hyper-V, having it be free, and having it actually ****ing work.
Wait, when the fuck did they add a GUI to Hyper-V. I do not recall seeing that when I setup my last Hyper-V Server 2016 instance 8 months ago.
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@jaredbusch said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
See this is why I am so confused.
- I can go to Microsoft and download Windows Server 2016, which when you install it, has options to install as core or GUI. Either way, I have to pay for a license because it's not free, core or GUI, RIGHT?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016
- I can go to Microsoft and download the "evaluation" of Hyper-V Server 2016, which when I install, has the option to install standard evaluation, or desktop experience evaluation. I can just use the standard no GUI and it's 100% free, RIGHT?? So then what does it matter if I choose to install the free hypervisor with the desktop experience?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016
If both things are separate things, but installing the Desktop Experience means they are the same thing and I have to pay for a license to use Hyper-V, then I don't understand why they are selling them together... or wait is it because they want money??
Now I am not trying to make assumptions here or not thinking in a sensible GD way. I am just trying to navigate my way through options for installing Hyper-V, having it be free, and having it actually ****ing work.
Wait, when the fuck did they add a GUI to Hyper-V. I do not recall seeing that when I setup my last Hyper-V Server 2016 instance 8 months ago.
I don't know but I swear to God that I saw in three different attempts of installing hyper-v 2016 that there was the second option of having a desktop experience installed.
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@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
See this is why I am so confused.
- I can go to Microsoft and download Windows Server 2016, which when you install it, has options to install as core or GUI. Either way, I have to pay for a license because it's not free, core or GUI, RIGHT?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016
- I can go to Microsoft and download the "evaluation" of Hyper-V Server 2016, which when I install, has the option to install standard evaluation, or desktop experience evaluation. I can just use the standard no GUI and it's 100% free, RIGHT?? So then what does it matter if I choose to install the free hypervisor with the desktop experience?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016
If both things are separate things, but installing the Desktop Experience means they are the same thing and I have to pay for a license to use Hyper-V, then I don't understand why they are selling them together... or wait is it because they want to rope you into having to pay them money??
Now I am not trying to make assumptions here or not thinking in a sensible GD way. I am just trying to navigate my way through options for installing Hyper-V, having it be free, and having it actually ****ing work.
With Windows Server, you have a lot more roles to choose from, which me you will have to have license. Hyper-V Server does not need a license in order to use it since the main use is to hist VMs.
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@black3dynamite said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@scottalanmiller said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
@dave247 said in Trying to set up Hyper-V Server 2016, ripping my hair out:
So... if I just install Hyper-V Server 2016 WITH the Desktop Experience, I would be able to manage VM's by directly remoting into the server, right? Then I wouldn't have to mess with the Hyper-V Manager in Windows 10..
Well... that's not a product option. To do that you have to buy and install a full Windows Server license, and then that license is tied to Hyper-V. If you od that, then you can admin it locally. But if you are even thinking about that, it's time to be on KVM.
See this is why I am so confused.
- I can go to Microsoft and download Windows Server 2016, which when you install it, has options to install as core or GUI. Either way, I have to pay for a license because it's not free, core or GUI, RIGHT?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-windows-server-2016
- I can go to Microsoft and download the "evaluation" of Hyper-V Server 2016, which when I install, has the option to install standard evaluation, or desktop experience evaluation. I can just use the standard no GUI and it's 100% free, RIGHT?? So then what does it matter if I choose to install the free hypervisor with the desktop experience?? - https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2016
If both things are separate things, but installing the Desktop Experience means they are the same thing and I have to pay for a license to use Hyper-V, then I don't understand why they are selling them together... or wait is it because they want to rope you into having to pay them money??
Now I am not trying to make assumptions here or not thinking in a sensible GD way. I am just trying to navigate my way through options for installing Hyper-V, having it be free, and having it actually ****ing work.
With Windows Server, you have a lot more roles to choose from, which me you will have to have license. Hyper-V Server does not need a license in order to use it since the main use is to hist VMs.
I am confident he is not using the full server instance based on all his detailed replies.
