Hyper-V OverviewUNIXBusinessApplication

Hyper-V is the #3 ranked solution in best Server Virtualization Software. PeerSpot users give Hyper-V an average rating of 7.6 out of 10. Hyper-V is most commonly compared to VMware vSphere: Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere. Hyper-V is popular among the large enterprise segment, accounting for 55% of users researching this solution on PeerSpot. The top industry researching this solution are professionals from a computer software company, accounting for 16% of all views.
Hyper-V Buyer's Guide

Download the Hyper-V Buyer's Guide including reviews and more. Updated: March 2023

What is Hyper-V?

Hyper-V is a hardware virtualization tool that allows users to create virtual computer environments with multiple operating systems on a single physical server. Each virtual machine has computer parts, such as memory, processor, storage, and networking, and acts like a standard computer - running its own operating system and software programs. Each component of the virtual machine can be configured to meet your specific requirements.

Hyper-V creates a cost-effective, stable, and productive server virtualization environment by running multiple operating systems, such as Windows, Linux, and more, in parallel on one machine or server. Each virtual machine runs in its own isolated space, which means you can run many virtual machines simultaneously but independently of each other. This helps prevent problems such as a crash affecting the other workloads and enables different users to separately access various systems.

Benefits of Hyper-V

  • Simplify application testing: With Hyper-V you can easily add and remove operating systems from your virtual machines, enabling you to run and test your applications on each of them all from one single computer.

  • Minimize resource usage and scalability: Virtual machines are easier to manage than physical hardware and less expensive. You can also maximize your server use by allocating its resources more efficiently than you can with physical hardware alone.

Hyper-V key features:.

  • Replication and migration: Hyper-V can replicate virtual machines for backups onto different sites. Hyper-V also provides a migration tool for moving a virtual machine from one Hyper-V host to another without causing any downtime.

  • Remote connection: Hyper-V’s remote connectivity tool allows administrators to remotely access a virtual machine.

  • Security: Hyper-V keeps virtual machines secure from malware attacks, unauthorized access, and data breaching attempts.

 Reviews from Real Users

Hyper-V stands out among its competitors for a number of reasons. Several major ones are its flexibility, its replication capabilities, and the fact that its virtual machines utilize a small amount of resources..

Liam L., the owner of a tech services company, writes, “It is actually very low on resources. It doesn't use many resources. It is also very easy to tailor. You can change things like the amount of memory and storage on the fly. It is very stable and reliable. I like its replication feature, which is very good. It is also very easy to move the virtual machines across push servers without any difficulty. Its performance is also very good. Now with this pandemic, a lot of workers are working from home. A lot of workers have been using laptops as their desktop computers, and they would remote into a virtual PC. There is no difficulty, and they can't tell the difference between this and the real one. It is much easier to manage.”

Kevin E. an IT director at Homeland Technology Group, LLC, notes, “We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time.”

Hyper-V Customers

Large customer base from all industries, all over the world. Two major Hyper-V customers are Telefonica and EmpireCLS.

Hyper-V Video

Hyper-V Pricing Advice

What users are saying about Hyper-V pricing:
  • "Hyper-V is more cost-effective for the size of our business One of the Hyper-V's biggest advantages over VMware is the cost. We are a small business, so Hyper-V allowed us to virtualize everything we need without breaking the bank."
  • "Because we're an NGO or a charity, we get discount rates from Microsoft. The costs are not astronomical for us. To give you an example, Office 2019 would only cost 30 or 45 for us. We tend to use the on-premises version rather than the cloud version. The reason is that the subscription service works out more expensive after a few years than the on-premise version. We're not worried about having the bleeding edge stuff. We just want it to be functional."
  • "If you have the standard edition of Windows server then with each copy of the operating system, you have two virtual machines for free."
  • Hyper-V Reviews

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    IT Director at HOMELAND TECHNOLOGY GROUP, LLC
    Real User
    Top 10
    It's a low-cost solution that enabled us to shrink everything down into a single server
    Pros and Cons
    • "We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time."
    • "Hyper-V's management platform falls short in terms of scalability, especially when handling multiple Hyper-V servers. VMware has a central console to pull in all your VM servers, so you can easily manage them all through one console. You can manage servers in Hyper-V's admin centers, but it's not as scalable. It's doable with a couple of Hyper-V servers, but it becomes harder to manage when you get over two or three Hyper-V servers."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Hyper-V for our on-premise servers, and we have a couple of Hyper-V desktops that remote salespeople use to log in remotely. They have an on-premises station they can remote into and utilize everything at our other office. We replicate everything there, so if anything happens to our facility here, we can get spun up at our other location.

    There are 40 people in our organization. We have sales engineers, technicians, and our standard office staff. Three servers are running off of Hyper-V, including our SQL server for our main CRM and QuickBooks databases, our central files storage server, and another files server that holds our backup domain controller. Then we have another domain controller that handles some other internal things. That is pretty much our organization in a nutshell.

    We plan to expand usage of Hyper-V. For example, we have a terminal server that isn't on Hyper-V at the moment. It is session based, and we're working on transitioning over. Also, we got a brand new server two weeks ago, so we're transitioning everybody off of the terminal server to local Windows 10 and Hyper-V VMs. 

    Everyone will have their own desktop environment versus having a session-based terminal. That way, if there's an emergency patch update or something like that for one person on the terminal server, we don't have to take the whole terminal server down. We can take down that person's desktop. We'll deploy as many as 12 additional Hyper-V desktops running in that. 

    That will be our future deployment based on what we've seen in the Hyper-V desktop environment and its performance. It runs great. All users who have already transitioned to that environment are enjoying it compared to the old terminal server that we had.

    How has it helped my organization?

    We were running three servers, but Hyper-V enabled us to shrink everything down into a single server running NVMe drives in it. Using Hyper-V's virtualization, we can operate all our servers on one physical server. We're seeing better performance off of that thanks mainly to the NVMe drives. 

    We've probably seen a 50 percent speed increase on our SQL server. Hyper-V has also significantly reduced our downtimes with faster boot-up and reboot. If we have to reboot a server, there is maybe two or three minutes of downtime. When we were on a bare-metal server, it could be five to ten minutes due to the total boot time.

    What is most valuable?

    Hyper-V is more cost-effective for the size of our business One of the Hyper-V's biggest advantages over VMware is the cost. We are a small business, so Hyper-V allowed us to virtualize everything we need without breaking the bank.

    What needs improvement?

    The most significant issues have with Hyper-V are the snapshots, local backup, and retention. VMware handles their backups are a lot better. I'd also like to see the ability to virtually hook an input-output device directly to the Hyper-V and the VMs, whether it be a card reader or disk drive. This is something you can do in VMware. 

    We still use customer or software solutions that come on a disk. I often have to rip the data and transfer it over. If I could just throw it in my disk drive and link my disc drive to that VM, that would be beneficial, or if I had a card reader that I could hook straight in. It's not a make-or-break thing, but that would make everything a little bit easier on some installs.

    Buyer's Guide
    Hyper-V
    March 2023
    Learn what your peers think about Hyper-V. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
    690,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We've been using Hyper-V in production for about three years now.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    Hyper-V has been highly stable. I'm impressed with the performance. Granted, this was my first Hyper-V install, so I was a bit worried about it, but with the hardware platform that we have it on, everything's been excellent stability-wise, and I haven't had any issues with that server. It's been up and working for the past six months. I only had to reboot once to do an update. Everything has been working great.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Hyper-V is less scalable than VMware. It's excellent for smaller environments like ours, but VMware is still the go-to solution if you want to scale up.

    Hyper-V's management platform falls short in terms of scalability, especially when handling multiple Hyper-V servers. VMware has a central console to pull in all your VM servers, so you can easily manage them all through one console. You can manage servers in Hyper-V's admin centers, but it's not as scalable. It's doable with a couple of Hyper-V servers, but it becomes harder to manage when you get over two or three Hyper-V servers.

    How are customer service and support?

    I've never had to deal with their technical support. Everything has gone smoothly with Hyper-V. When I had a few minor issues, I was able to find solutions on the Microsoft forum.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We had VMware ESXi, but it came down to what we needed as a business. Hyper-V was the best bet for the cost. It all boiled down to cost and ease of deployment. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The Hyper-V setup was straightforward. I transitioned all three of our servers by myself on New Year's Eve. I came in at 8 a.m. and had all three servers transitioned over to Hyper-V within about six hours. The initial setup for VMware took a little longer. 

    First, we needed to get the Hyper-V server in place. Once we had that in place, we transitioned from the bare-metal servers to the Hyper-V transition for our initial servers. We used a solution — I believe it was called StarNet or something like that — to do our initial conversion from bare-metal to VM. 

    Over the next six months, we spun up our new servers and did conversions because we were running server 2008. Once we had everything on the VM's, we split up the new VM servers and transitioned to the server 2019 platform.

    We have two IT staff members for deployment and maintenance. I do 90 percent of the maintenance. The other IT person does little things as needed, but Hyper-V requires little maintenance.

    What was our ROI?

    By implementing Hyper-V and cutting down on servers, we have seen a cost reduction. If we stuck with the bare-metal servers, we would see an initial cost for the server hardware of about $4,000 or $5,000. And in the long term, we'll save money on electricity and overall server maintenance of the servers. About five years out, we'll either break even or save over the cost of bare-metal servers.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    There's no annual cost for the Hyper-V server version 2019. If you add up the other solutions we have on there, it totals up to around $3,000 a year.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate Hyper-V around 8.5 compared to VMware. The ease of use is there, but VMware has more options and scalability. However, VMware has a lot more upfront and yearly costs. Hyper-V is a great solution and an excellent way to virtualize your servers and everything. It's a good fit for a small business.

    If you're converting from Hyper-V or vice versa, make sure you run a couple of tests of your conversion strategy. I did run into one little snag the first time. The server wouldn't boot properly, but that came down to a permissions issue. Make sure you thoroughly test any server or VM's you're converting over. Test to see that everything boots back up. Also, make sure all your virtual switches are set up correctly because you sometimes run into some networking issues within the VM if you don't configure those 100 percent correctly.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    IT Manager at a tech vendor with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Top 5
    Easy to use, straightforward to setup, and capable of scaling
    Pros and Cons
    • "Microsoft has documentation that is easy to find, helpful, and readily available."
    • "The solution is heavily reliant on Microsoft's active directory for authentication, for coordination between nodes. Therefore, it inherits all the issues that are within the active directory."

    What is our primary use case?

    The solution is server virtualization software. We're using it to create virtual servers on our hosts and assign roles to each server separately. That's basically what a virtualization server does.

    What is most valuable?

    The solution's ease of use is the most important feature. It is very easy to use and implement. 

    It has very good fail-over features. You can have servers running in a fail-over cluster and whenever one server fails, you can migrate the workloads to the second one. This is also a very important feature to avoid service downtime or to minimize it at the very least.

    The initial setup is pretty straightforward for the most part.

    Microsoft has documentation that is easy to find, helpful, and readily available. 

    The stability is pretty good.

    The solution can scale.

    What needs improvement?

    The solution has already improved for us. We have the older version, which was released in 2012, or the end of 2012. There were two releases after that, however, we haven't updated due to the fact that the upgrade costs are too high, and therefore we've migrated to Hyperflex.

    The solution is heavily reliant on Microsoft's active directory for authentication, for coordination between nodes. Therefore, it inherits all the issues that are within the active directory.

    If you have other virtualization solutions you have about 95% or 99% of the resources of the host available to you to assign to a virtual server. However, with Windows, that number is less than 95% and is more like 90%. There is a margin reserved for the server itself. That's a downside.

    The solution needs to improve integration with hyper-converged infrastructure solutions, or SGI solutions. We were going with SGI for our next virtualization solution. I read reviews about the Hyper-V causing issues with SGI. When we decided to go with SGI, I decided against going with Hyper-V due to the integration issues that it had. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for about five years or so at this point, give or take. It's been a while. I'm currently using it now as well.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The solution is basically stable. There are not many faults happening in the four or so years that we had it running. Whatever happened was basically either due to the active directory or due to environments like the server itself that had power loss one time. It shut down and we needed to restart it. However, basically, that's an environment issue, not an issue inherent to Hyper-V itself. Otherwise, Hyper-V runs smoothly.

    There is a small overhead of resources reserved for the server itself. Other virtualization solutions have less overhead than that. However, due to the fact that Hyper-V is running on Windows Server, there is a margin of overhead reserved for the server itself. 

    For the most part, however, it's reliable. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    The solution is quite scalable. If a company needs to expand, it can do so with relative ease.

    Due to the fact that it's a virtualization solution, our IT team of three is managing it. However, as an ISP, we host some very important client services as well on the same solution. That means the number of users can go up to 100,000. From a management perspective, the management is just the three of us in the IT department.

    We do not plan to increase usage at this time. Currently, with our version, we're planning to phase it out in our company within the next few years. That's mostly due to the fact that upgrade costs are too high and the solution is already an older generation, and we have decided to buy a fully new solution on new hardware. It will be Hyperflex.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We haven't contacted Microsoft for support. We've worked with several Microsoft partners for support and they were responsive. However, we haven't reached out to Microsoft directly.

    There is good documentation from Microsoft and this can help with troubleshooting as well. 

    Windows support in general is available online. It's as easy as Googling the issue that you have and you'll readily find solutions. It's not complicated. That part is positive. Other solutions are either too complicated or not very popular. In other products, if you need any support, you must either contact the vendor themselves or look for professional support.

    How was the initial setup?

    The solution is straightforward if you know how to use Windows Server. Hyper-V is basically a role on Windows Server. Therefore, you can use Windows Server for many roles on networking, on the active directory. Hyper-V is just one of them. You can just install the role and enable it and that's it. Basically, it's up.

    The deployment is quite quick. It's a part of the server.

    Initial setup process:

    after installing the Windows Server, you select 'Add Roles & Features' from the 'Manage' Menu on the 'Server Manager' Window.

    then you step through the wizard, selecting the 'Hyper-V' Role along with any features Windows requires for that role. a restart is recommended even if it's not required.

    to implement a solution with redundancy, you can install the 'Failover Cluster' Role with the Hyper-V Role on 2 (or more) identical servers, and create a Failover Cluster out of the servers where VMs would "Fail Over" between servers.

    then you need to set up a virtual switch to connect the VMs. you should set up at least 1 external switch to enable internet access and remote reachability for the VMs.

    then you can create VMs and run them.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The costs in regards to upgrading the solution are quite high and it deters customers from changing versions.

    The old solution in 2012 was charging at a cost per server and the pricing was good at the time. In 2016, Microsoft upgraded the licensing, or changed the licensing scheme to per CPU within the server. Basically, if we wanted to upgrade to 2016, we would have had to pay double again for the same software. Therefore, we decided to go with another solution.

    The solution offers perpetual licensing.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are just a customer or end-user.

    We're using the version that is on Windows Server 2012 R2.

    I'd advise other companies that this solution is to be considered, compared to other solutions. That said, there are solutions that are better and it depends on the scenario. It depends on the scenario, the scale you have, the implementation, et cetera. Companies should compare it to other solutions. Maybe the cost is high and performance isn't as good for them. I would suggest companies go with the VMware solution. That said, again, it depends on the scenario. In some scenarios, where a company is heavily dependent on Microsoft and Windows, it would be a better solution for them.

    If most of your workloads are Windows Server, then buying a server host would give you free licensing for those workloads. The licensing would be included. Otherwise, if you buy another solution then you have to pay separately for each Windows license. The cost would be again, very high. For us, I can say maybe 70% or 80% of our workloads are Linux and other OS's, not Windows. It wouldn't make sense for us to go with Hyper-V. The cost would be too high. If you are implementing heavily into Windows Server, go for Hyper-V. If you have a different application or different type of application, then you'd be better off going with another solution. 

    I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Hyper-V
    March 2023
    Learn what your peers think about Hyper-V. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: March 2023.
    690,226 professionals have used our research since 2012.
    Owner at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
    Real User
    Top 10
    Low on resources, easy to tailer, easy to move things, and highly reliable
    Pros and Cons
    • "It is actually very low on resources. It doesn't use many resources. It is also very easy to tailor. You can change things like the amount of memory and storage on the fly. It is very stable and reliable. I like its replication feature, which is very good. It is also very easy to move the virtual machines across push servers without any difficulty. Its performance is also very good. Now with this pandemic, a lot of workers are working from home. A lot of workers have been using laptops as their desktop computers, and they would remote into a virtual PC. There is no difficulty, and they can't tell the difference between this and the real one. It is much easier to manage."
    • "The Hyper-V management console could be improved to make it easier. It should be a little bit more granular. Various virtual switches could also be improved to make virtual desk management slightly better. The replication could be improved slightly. The checkpoints or snapshots could be improved to make it a bit more transparent to the user."

    What is our primary use case?

    We basically use it to virtualize a service for email on-premise. We also use it to virtualize the apps, but it is mainly for virtualizing servers, such as SQL Server, Exchange Server, SharePoint, and CRM.

    How has it helped my organization?

    It has cut down the management role on the actual service itself because we only have four Hyper-V hosts. Recently we had two, but we've put in two all-flash Hyper-V hosts. We have all-flash storage. It is good storage with loads of RAM. Most of them have got three-quarters of a terabyte of RAM, and they all are dual 32-core processors. There is no lack of power or anything in them. Because our servers are virtualized, it means that we do have four rack servers.

    It really reduces the load. By using replication, we can separate out the servers and put them at different locations. We have them attached to the 10 gig fiber. With the replication facility, even if we do lose a server, we can be up and running within seconds or minutes at worst.

    What is most valuable?

    It is actually very low on resources. It doesn't use many resources. It is also very easy to tailor. You can change things like the amount of memory and storage on the fly. 

    It is very stable and reliable. I like its replication feature, which is very good. It is also very easy to move the virtual machines across push servers without any difficulty. 

    Its performance is also very good. Now with this pandemic, a lot of workers are working from home. A lot of workers have been using laptops as their desktop computers, and they would remote into a virtual PC. There is no difficulty, and they can't tell the difference between this and the real one. It is much easier to manage.

    What needs improvement?

    The Hyper-V management console could be improved to make it easier. It should be a little bit more granular. Various virtual switches could also be improved to make virtual desk management slightly better. 

    The replication could be improved slightly. The checkpoints or snapshots could be improved to make it a bit more transparent to the user.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using this solution for around 15 years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It is very stable and very reliable. I never had any failures of any description with it, which is amazing. We might have had hardware failures on the host, but everything is redundant, so there is plenty of resilience there.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    I haven't come across any scalability issues, but you need a fairly powerful host machine. 

    Nearly all users are using Hyper-V in some way, but they're not aware that it is Hyper-V that they're using while logging in to the servers. The servers are all virtualized, except for the physical servers that are hosting Hyper-V. We have quite a lot of virtual servers. The gateway that they use is a virtualized gateway server. Email servers are all virtualized. All sorts of services and filling servers are all virtualized. Virtualization reduces the physical footprint.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    I never had to use Hyper-V technical support from Microsoft. It has been pretty stable.

    How was the initial setup?

    It is very straightforward, very simple, and very quick. It is very quick to set up a virtual machine. You can set it up in minutes.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    Because we're an NGO or a charity, we get discount rates from Microsoft. The costs are not astronomical for us. To give you an example, Office 2019 would only cost 30 or 45 for us. We tend to use the on-premises version rather than the cloud version. The reason is that the subscription service works out more expensive after a few years than the on-premise version. We're not worried about having the bleeding edge stuff. We just want it to be functional.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would advise making sure that you have the hardware that is up to the job. You should also have a clear plan of what you want to virtualize. Make sure that there is room for growth in terms of the physical hardware for the host, which is the server hosting Hyper-V. 

    It is very robust. It doesn't consume as many resources as VMware, for instance. It is fairly slick. It is very functional and doesn't really present great challenges.

    I would definitely rate Hyper-V a ten out of ten. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    Engineer, System Admin at ebm
    Real User
    Top 10
    Stable, works on almost all hardware, and easy to deploy
    Pros and Cons
    • "The initial setup is simple. There's not much to do. We input one command or just one or two clicks on the UI. Initial setup in the Windows environment for any software is not that difficult."
    • "I would like Microsoft to put more effort into the Admin Center interface and make it much easier. It is customizable, but you have to be a PowerShell expert to customize these things. That is a limitation."

    What is our primary use case?

    We are mainly using Hyper-V for VMs. The primary business is biscuit manufacturing, so we have 70 different types of sales-related software, some Windows-based SAP, and VMs running on Hyper-V. All VMs are running on Hyper-V. So indirectly, everyone is using it because it's our primary production system. We have maybe 650 employees at the moment. About 200 of these are computer users who are connected with Hyper-V in one way or another. Either they are using some of its services in a virtual machine or they're the IT guys directly involved with it. The non-IT people are using finance software or SAP-related software that they access through the web. Some servers are standalone Hyper-V, and there are two clusters of Hyper-V.

    What is most valuable?

    We have a cluster with storage space direct in Hyper-V, and we have virtual networking as well, so we are using all of the features except for Credential Guard, Host Guardian, and a few other things. We are not using these types of Hyper-V solutions because we don't need them.

    What needs improvement?

    Microsoft has developed a Windows Admin Center to manage its servers. I would like Microsoft to put more effort into the Admin Center interface and make it much easier. It is customizable, but you have to be a PowerShell expert to customize these things. That is a limitation. Microsoft could also do more modules related to servers and add administration features for that. I like Admin Center, and I want to deploy it in my organization, but the role-based access control feature is limited as we have to give a complete administrative right to other users as well. So these are some limitations that are blocking us. The Admin Center needs to provide a consolidated management interface that is easy to configure and provide a role-based access control so that we can give certain rights to our other users enabling them to administer the servers.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I joined the organization where I currently work in the last year, and the organization has deployed Hyper-V since 2012. So, in this organization, I have used Hyper-V for one year. But before that, I was a Microsoft instructor teaching about Microsoft products, including Hyper-V.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    I would say that Hyper-V is pretty stable. But when it updates, we must restart all Windows systems. So if Microsoft can fix this thing so that the packages install restarting, then everything would be heaven for us. This means some downtime on our business side.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    Yeah. It's easy to scale cluster features like Microsoft or Hyper-V. We can add as many servers—a maximum of 64—so it can handle a lot and it's easy for us to add to it. But there is one requirement, which is that the servers have to be identical in hardware specs. So that is one of the limitations.

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support was good. We didn't require Hyper-V technical support, but we have some issues with our Exchange online and email. So, for that, we opened a ticket with Microsoft, and they provided us with good and excellent support.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is simple. There's not much to do. We input one command or just one or two clicks on the UI. Initial setup in the Windows environment for any software is not that difficult. Installing Hyper-V takes five to 10 minutes, including two server restarts. And then, we have to make the VMs, so that depends on how many we are making. That's the other factor, not the initial deployment. Migrating VMs is easy. It does not require any specific configurations because it runs on most hardware. And Windows Update comes with automatic updates. We use the WSUS server to update our servers to have controlled update patches. We keep our servers up to date, so it's easier, and it does not require any specialized hardware.

    What other advice do I have?

    I rate it eight out of 10. I recommend Hyper-V because it's easy to install and supports most hardware. It runs on almost everything. I'm also recommending my company go for Azure Stack because it also uses Hyper-V, so we will not have to convert our VMs. But the top management in our organization is considering Nutanix or VMware solutions. I don't know why they're doing this. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    PreSales Manager at UC-Solutions
    Real User
    Top 5
    Stable with minimal downtime, and it has a good licensing model
    Pros and Cons
    • "There are two very good things about this product including licensing and stability."
    • "It would be nice if they provided a free management console that we could use to manage all of the hosts for no additional fee."

    What is our primary use case?

    I am a solution provider and Hyper-V is one of the products that I implement for my customers.

    What is most valuable?

    There are two very good things about this product including licensing and stability. 

    What needs improvement?

    If you have a lot of Hyper-V servers then you will need an additional product, which is the System Center Virtual Machine Manager, so that you can control the host environments of all of your virtual machines. It would be nice if they provided a free management console that we could use to manage all of the hosts for no additional fee.

    There should be a way to restart the services and not the whole station, which would minimize downtime, especially when updating the operating system. This is a feature that everybody needs.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I started working with Hyper-V in 2012, between eight and nine years ago.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The product is very stable, in particular with the most recent version of Windows Server. This is true even in a cluster environment, and I have never found an issue with stability.

    Obviously, when you are using Windows Server update, it will restart the server occasionally and you will have downtime, but it will be minimal. If you don't want to have any downtime then you will need multiple hosts in a cluster environment. You can move your virtual machines from one host to another, which means that you can restart the server and not affect the service. This can be important because sometimes, the restart process takes too much time to complete.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is very easy to scale Hyper-V. However, it depends on the version that you have because if you have the Standard Edition then you only have three hosts. If you want more than three hosts then you will need a Datacenter version.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I have experience with VMware and one of the nice features is that you can restart a service after an update and everything goes live in seconds, rather than minutes.

    These two technologies compete with each other, and in deciding which to use, I speak with users about their needs. I also speak with them about the knowledge of their technical team and the budget. These are all factors in the decision because I want to provide the best solution from both a technical and budget perspective.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is very easy. All you have to do is watch a 10-minute YouTube video and you can deploy the hardware.

    It can be deployed in different ways. If you need to have a virtual environment then it will be hosted on Microsoft Azure. If instead, you have your own private cloud then it will be hosted on-premises, on your physical servers.

    The tricky part about this field is not the deployment. It's troubleshooting and finding solutions for issues. For just about any software, you can deploy anything. Even if you don't understand anything about the product, you can deploy anything from scratch and there is no issue with it. The problem is figuring how to solve issues and find solutions outside of the box. Almost all Microsoft issues are solved in this way. It's not about what you find online or in the documentation. Rather, you need to think outside the box. It's the hardest part about this field.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    If you have the standard edition of Windows server then with each copy of the operating system, you have two virtual machines for free.

    If you have a Windows Datacenter license then you have unlimited virtual machines for free. This is much better compared to ESXi or VMware, where each virtual machine requires its own license. In the Windows Datacenter, you can have as many as you want.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
    PeerSpot user
    AANKITGUPTAA - PeerSpot reviewer
    Consultant at Pi DATACENTERS
    Real User
    Top 5Leaderboard
    Issue-free, easy to set up, and allows for easy generation of virtual machines
    Pros and Cons
    • "It's a stable product."
    • "We'd like a template feature to help deploy VMs quickly."

    What is our primary use case?

    Currently, we use the Windows Server 2022 Hyper-V server.

    We started the virtualization and provide two virtualized environments or operating system environments in the Windows Server itself. We run in the virtualized environment under one single Windows Server license. We started our virtualization from one site on Hyper-V.

    How has it helped my organization?

    Most of the workload we usually have is in the Windows Server. We also leverage the Windows Server virtualization feature, allowing us to use the hardware efficiently and get multiple Windows installs based on the license. We use both Windows Server Standard and Data Center Editions. In the Data Center Edition, we can run unlimited virtual machines based on our hardware capabilities.

    What is most valuable?

    The generation feature is good. Hyper-V allows us to define generation one and generation two Hyper-Vs with some legacy boot features. I appreciate the easy  generation of virtual machines.

    It is straightforward to set up the solution. 

    It's a stable product.

    We can scale the solution.

    It's pretty much issue free, so we haven't needed technical support.

    What needs improvement?

    They need to make some improvements to compare to VMware on Nutanix. There should be a center manual console to manage all the Hyper-V servers and cross-host V-motion. There should be clustering, and the virtual data center should be created with that in mind. There should be similar offerings between different services available within the industry.

    I'd like there to be a central management console and a central configuration tool to manage and configure multiple Hyper-V services. 

    We'd like a template feature to help deploy VMs quickly.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've been using the solution for more than seven years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    It works well. It is stable and reliable. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    It is scalable only in terms of licensing.

    If you have the Data Center Edition license, you can scale up.

    We use this product for 50 or more servers.

    We do not have plans to increase usage at this time. 

    How are customer service and support?

    We do not need to take general support from Microsoft. It's not a very complex product. We can troubleshoot ourselves.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I've yet to use a different solution. 

    How was the initial setup?

    The solution is simple to set up. It's not overly complex. 

    One Windows server administrator can handle the deployment and maintenance.

    What about the implementation team?

    We handled the deployment ourselves, in-house. We did not need any outside assistance. 

    What was our ROI?

    Initially, we started our journey with the Alpha virtualization with Hyper-V. We can leverage multiple virtual machines, and we can create them with the help of Hyper-V. On Windows Server, with Hyper-V, we can get two virtual machines of Windows Server. However, we can also create other virtual machines like Linux. We can create a very dense environment that is very valuable to our organization.

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    The cost of the product actually comes under the Windows server purchase. A Windows Server standard license comes with Hyper-V. A minimum of eight core license units need to be purchased. The costs depend completely on your CPU and core central server.

    What other advice do I have?

    Before committing to one solution, a new user needs to consider what they might do if, at some point, they need to migrate. Users need to consider sizing also before deployment, as well as disk format types. They should use Thin provisioning before the deployment of a VM, and not use Thick provisioning.

    I'd rate the solution eight out of ten. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    Flag as inappropriate
    PeerSpot user
    Senior System Engineer at avian Technologies (pvt) ltd
    Real User
    Top 10
    A virtualization solution with many useful features, but It would be better if it demanded less memory
    Pros and Cons
    • "I like that Hyper-V is like a virtual environment. I like to use VMware because of the resource requirements. In Sri Lanka, most of the customers use the Hyper-V GUI. When installing the interface with the Windows version, we also install the Hyper-V feature on the server. This is because they require more features and memory. There are so many features that they have embedded in Hyper-V that are useful."
    • "It would be better if it demanded less memory. Once you have allocated those memory spaces for the installed server, fewer resources are left to allocate for the Hyper-V virtual environment. That's the drawback with that. For example, once you install Windows 10, and let's say Windows 2019, Windows 2019 will take at least 10 GB of memory. If a customer has only 16 GB of RAM on the system, they think of installing Hyper-V. Because when you have windows 2019 or something else, they give two free Hyper-V virtual licenses. But we can't because there's not enough memory. We can, however, install this as a VMS. But this UI isn't that user-friendly for most customers. They like to have a user interface with VMI, and it's not easy when you install VMI. It would also be better if they can improve their core Hyper-V version to be a bit more familiar and user-friendly with its interface. I think it would be much easier. We had a few issues with the VM Hyper-V virtual network. Once you have such issues, it's very difficult to find out where they came from. They had such issues, and we had to resolve the system again. But other than that, if it's useful and keeps working nicely, it will work very nicely even if something happens. But it's very hectic and challenging to find out where it's happening. In the next release, it would be better to control this data store part in a manageable way. This is because once we install and create a Hyper-V machine, it goes everywhere. It would be better if it had a single location and a single folder with a heartbeat and virtual machine information. You can just go forward, and the data store and everything are going into one place like the C drive. But something always goes fast, or everything gets lost if the customer doesn't manually change the direction of where the virtual hard drive routes, the more serious the problem. It would be better if they could merge all that together. This includes the virtual machine and the virtual hard drive in the same folder when creating the virtual machine. I think that it would be much easier to manage and in case something happens. Technical support also could be better."

    What is most valuable?

    I like that Hyper-V is like a virtual environment. I like to use VMware because of the resource requirements. In Sri Lanka, most of the customers use the Hyper-V GUI. When installing the interface with the Windows version, we also install the Hyper-V feature on the server. This is because they require more features and memory. There are so many features that they have embedded in Hyper-V that are useful.

    What needs improvement?

    It would be better if it demanded less memory. Once you have allocated those memory spaces for the installed server, fewer resources are left to allocate for the Hyper-V virtual environment. That's the drawback with that. For example, once you install Windows 10, and let's say Windows 2019, Windows 2019 will take at least 10 GB of memory.

    If a customer has only 16 GB of RAM on the system, they think of installing Hyper-V. Because when you have windows 2019 or something else, they give two free Hyper-V virtual licenses. But we can't because there's not enough memory.

    We can, however, install this as a VMS. But this UI isn't that user-friendly for most customers. They like to have a user interface with VMI, and it's not easy when you install VMI.

    It would also be better if they can improve their core Hyper-V version to be a bit more familiar and user-friendly with its interface. I think it would be much easier. We had a few issues with the VM Hyper-V virtual network. Once you have such issues, it's very difficult to find out where they came from. They had such issues, and we had to resolve the system again. But other than that, if it's useful and keeps working nicely, it will work very nicely even if something happens. But it's very hectic and challenging to find out where it's happening. 

    In the next release, it would be better to control this data store part in a manageable way. This is because once we install and create a Hyper-V machine, it goes everywhere. It would be better if it had a single location and a single folder with a heartbeat and virtual machine information. 

    You can just go forward, and the data store and everything are going into one place like the C drive. But something always goes fast, or everything gets lost if the customer doesn't manually change the direction of where the virtual hard drive routes, the more serious the problem.

    It would be better if they could merge all that together. This includes the virtual machine and the virtual hard drive in the same folder when creating the virtual machine. I think that it would be much easier to manage and in case something happens. Technical support also could be better.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using Hyper-V for more than five years.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    Technical support with Microsoft is crazy because we never get it. If I'm having some issues with Microsoft, opening up a ticket is very difficult even though we have it in Sri Lanka. Even from there, we cannot get the technical support for the marketing stuff. They will give us support, but it's not easy to open up a ticket and get that technical support for the technical stuff. Right now, the best support we can get is from Google.

    Which other solutions did I evaluate?

    You can easily use Hyper-V coercion, and It's very good. Hyper-V is good when compared to VMI. It's not easy, but they have so many features, and backing up features and migrations and networking are much easier.

    What other advice do I have?

    On a scale from one to ten, I would give Hyper-V a six.

    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
    PeerSpot user
    Shashika Rathnayaka - PeerSpot reviewer
    Technical Manager at OAK integrated System Pvt Ltd
    Real User
    Top 5
    Easy to implements with familiar features and easy to expand
    Pros and Cons
    • "The implementation process is simple."
    • "Sometimes there's a bit of slowness in the VMs."

    What is our primary use case?

    We have a project for disaster recovery. We are using an arc server. We have to use the basic server, each biometric server, in the virtualization environment. In the virtualization environment, we are using Hyper-V. In the software, in the arc server, they get the image from the metal and put it into the Hyper-V environment.

    What is most valuable?

    It is familiar. It's very comfortable with Windows. I can configure it easily, with no hassle. That's the main thing I have seen is that the licensing, when we talk about the standard version, they're giving the rule license for free. That is a good benefit for assembly companies.

    We can use the solution for free when you want to try it out. 

    The implementation process is simple. 

    What needs improvement?

    We haven't had any difficulties with the solution. We're happy with it. 

    Sometimes there's a bit of slowness in the VMs. The performance could be a bit better.

    We'd like to see a bit more done with the migration capabilities. 

    The solution needs to offer better local or regional support. 

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've dealt with the solution for five or six years. 

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    We'd like to see the performance improve a bit. 

    In our experience, for the most part, the solution is reliable. We haven't experienced any bugs or glitches. 

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    There are five people directly using the solution. I'm not personally using the solution on a daily basis. 

    It is scalable and easy to expand. 

    How are customer service and support?

    Technical support has been a bit slow for us. Sometimes, due to regional time changes, there are issues. Therefore, when I raise a ticket for an issue, it takes time. We are in Sri Lanka, and there is no regional support here. We'd like them to have more regional support. 

    How would you rate customer service and support?

    Neutral

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We've also worked with VMware and Sangfor. The main difference is that the Hypervisor should be not at the OS level. It should be at the hardware level. That's the main thing Microsoft has to improve.

    In VMware, we saw they have VMotion. In the Hypervisor, that feature is not there. We didn't manage to transfer some images, We would have to do it manually. It should be automatic. That would be added to Hyper-V.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup is pretty straightforward. It's not overly complex. 

    The deployment was quick. It took 15 to 20 minutes. 

    I'd rate the solution five out of five in terms of ease of setup. 

    We don't really need any maintenance to be done on the product. Once a month, Microsoft may provide us patches, and we tend to implement those, However, that's it. We put those in place to protect us from security issues. 

    What about the implementation team?

    We did have help in the sense that we searched the internet for assistance and answers to our questions. We did not engage with a vendor. We handled the setup ourselves. 

    What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

    I'm not sure of the exact pricing of the solution. The cost may be a bit higher than VMware, however.

    What other advice do I have?

    We are service integrators.

    We are working with the latest update.

    I'd advise that a potential new user should look into their requirements. It's difficult to change a product once it has been issued. You need to know what you want. 

    I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. 

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
    PeerSpot user
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
    Updated: March 2023
    Buyer's Guide
    Download our free Hyper-V Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.