Hyper-V Reviews

The user interface of the tool is an area of concern where improvements are required. Hyper-V's user interface is difficult to use compared to VMware's. Hyper-V also has some hardware limitations. It is not easy to integrate it with other tools, making it an area where improvements are required.

The tool should be improved in some areas, particularly scalability-wise.

A heterogeneous architecture should be introduced in Hyper-V. It is very difficult to convert a physical machine to a virtual machine. Hyper-V should be improved just like VMware. Hyper-V It should introduce a converter that can be used for the conversion of hardware machines to software machines.

I have been using Hyper-V for two years.

My company did not face any issues during the product's implementation phase.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

I would not say that it is a totally reasonably priced product as it is merged with our overall costs associated with Microsoft products. We bought some enterprise licenses for our company's data center for Windows Server 2019. The licensing part is bundled with the data center version meant for Windows Server 2019, so the costs are manageable.

I am generally satisfied with the use of the product. The tool has some limited features. It does not very advanced features. We have some other sites in our company, so we can use Hyper-V for some reason, and I cannot share its details with anyone. Our company is okay with the tool but not fully satisfied with Hyper-V if I compare it to VMware.

The tool's most beneficial part for managing our company's virtual environments revolves around the fact that it is included in the data center licenses, so one does not have to buy it separately as it is with the data center version.

The tool is very easy to implement, so we can manage it in our company. We can manage and deploy the tool quickly if it is VMware. With Hyper-V, we can just deploy the tool to meet our needs. In our company, we can easily deploy Hyper-V, which is why we use it on some sites but not all.

The main issue with the tool is our financial constraint. In Hyper-V, we can meet our financial needs, and that is the reason why we use it. Hyper-V. We have many financial constraints with VMware, so we cannot deploy it. VMware is a very good tool, very easy to deploy, very easy to manage, and has a very easy interface and flexibility with the other hardware products while being easy to use the integration features. With the financial crisis in every country, it is very difficult to manage solutions on the cloud.

I recommend Hyper-V to a small organization or company that can easily manage the hassles associated with Hyper-V.

I rate the tool a six and a half out of ten.

Hyper-V is utilized across various resources. For example, Azure utilizes Hyper-V as its hypervisor in the backend, so essentially, Azure's cloud services run on Hyper-V. Thus, Hyper-V plays a crucial role in cloud computing environments.

Hyper-V functions as a feature within Windows Server editions, like Windows Server 2012 Standard, where it's included by default. With the purchase of the operating system, you gain access to multiple services such as software-defined storage, Hyper-V for virtualization, cluster computing, containerization with Docker and Kubernetes, and data deduplication, among others. 

Hyper-V allows for secure, isolated virtual environments for running applications, offering scalability, portability, and the ability to configure network settings, making it a significant asset for virtualization.

So, virtualization with Hyper-V is crucial. Consider Azure Stack HCI, which relies exclusively on Hyper-V for operation, hosting all workloads on virtual machines. Without Hyper-V, Azure Stack HCI wouldn't function. Hyper-V's importance extends to Azure cloud as well; it's fundamental from Microsoft's perspective. 

When we look beyond Microsoft to other cloud services like those offered by AWS or VMware, it's clear they depend on their own hypervisors to deliver similar services. Therefore, hypervisors, including Hyper-V, play a crucial role in today's cloud infrastructure.

However, I also faced a challenge with Hyper-V. One challenge is related to VM configuration files. In earlier Hyper-V versions, these files were in XML format, which allowed easy editing if there were any parameter mismatches or errors. However, the newer format, BCM, doesn't have any external tools available for editing the configuration file. 

So, if a customer encounters an issue with the configuration file, they might need to create a support ticket with Microsoft. Microsoft can then use an internal tool to analyze the BCM file and identify the problem. This can be a bit inconvenient for users, but overall, Hyper-V remains user-friendly and functional in most operational areas. I wouldn't say there are many challenges otherwise.

Live Migration is the most significant feature of VM management. It allows for fault tolerance and scalability while maintaining reliability. Even if a host node goes down unexpectedly, like during a mistaken shutdown, the service continues running smoothly. The shutdown request goes to the service control manager, which gracefully stops services and prepares them for migration.  

Hyper-V VMM service then initiates a live migration of all VMs on that node to another available node, without impacting users. This ensures VMs are seamlessly transferred while the original node undergoes maintenance or experiences an outage. So, Live Migration is the most convenient feature for managing virtual machines.

There's room for improvement in Hyper-V. One area I've personally encountered issues with is live migration. Sometimes during live migrations, the process gets stuck in a certain state. This can happen with replication as well. It's not necessarily a major problem, but at times, the error messages aren't very informative. They don't clearly explain why the migration failed.

If Hyper-V could be more user-friendly with more detailed logging during live migrations, it would be a significant improvement for users.

For example, let's say a VM fails to start. The error message might mention a "parameter interrupt" failure, but it wouldn't tell you which specific parameter is causing the issue. These are the kinds of minor details that can be improved to make things easier for end users. 

With more specific error messages, users could readily identify a configuration issue in a parameter, fix it themselves, and get the VM running. But without clear information, they have to raise a support ticket and wait for support personnel to analyze logs and potentially use source code tracing to identify the problem. This can be a time-consuming process. 

By providing more user-friendly error messages, we can avoid these situations and empower users to resolve issues independently. That's one immediate improvement.

I'm quite familiar with Hyper-V, having worked with it for over 15 years.

Stability-wise, Hyper-V is definitely more stable than many other products. Compared to any other hypervisor on the market, Hyper-V is a very solid product. 

In my experience, with good hardware resources and a compatible operating system, I can confidently guarantee a 99.95% SLA (Service Level Agreement) uptime for Hyper-V environments without even needing to check the specific environment beforehand.

The number of users working on Hyper-V depends on how you configure it. In a Hyper-V cluster, you can potentially run up to 1000 VMs on a single server. This translates to supporting more than 1000 users concurrently, accessing and using multiple VMs. 

There's no specific user access limit; it depends on your licensing. You can have many customers accessing your VMs based on your licensing agreements.

Hyper-V itself isn't really the solution; it's the platform that many solutions run on top of. Even Azure services and Azure Stack HCI rely on Hyper-V. Since Hyper-V provides a stable foundation, my focus isn't on comparing it to other platforms.

Instead, I concentrate on understanding the customer's specific requirements and the service they need. My discussion revolves around that specific service, not Hyper-V itself.

Generally, the setup is straightforward and user-friendly, significantly better compared to other hypervisors. There's always room for improvement, but Hyper-V stands out for its ease of use.

Hyper-V deployment is very user-friendly. It supports partial scripting and offers a UI for a smooth experience. There's also PowerShell scripting available for advanced users.

Additionally, Microsoft itself has published thousands of articles on deployment, making it easy to find the steps. You can choose manual script execution, utilize UI for smaller deployments, or leverage automation - all based on your needs.

I have not faced any challenges in the deployment process. 

Licensing cost depends on the edition you choose. There are two main options: Standard and Datacenter. 

With a Datacenter license, you can only create two virtual machines that are covered by the license itself. You can create more VMs, but they won't be licensed and could result in charges during an audit.

Feature-wise, both Standard and Datacenter editions offer the same functionalities. The key difference lies in licensing. Standard includes licenses for only two VMs, while Datacenter allows you to run any number of VMs with a single Datacenter license. Datacenter also offers functionalities like Storage Replica and live migration that aren't available in Standard.

The user doesn't have any control over the licensing process itself. You can create VMs regardless of licensing, but in Standard edition, they'll be considered unlicensed and subject to charges during an audit. 

Datacenter offers all the features of the Standard edition, plus the ability to run any number of licensed VMs as part of the Datacenter licensing cost. That's why Datacenter is more expensive.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten. 

I would definitely recommend using this solution. My advice depends on their specific needs. But for many customers, Hyper-V is already included in their Windows server environment. They don't need to purchase anything extra. They can simply start using it.

It's very easy to get started.

We use the tool for virtualization. We have virtual servers so that we do not have to have individual servers for every service. We use it to create mirrors of the primary server. We can deploy a number of services on one server.

The restore function of the virtual server is valuable to me. It cuts down the time of redeploying a service that is down.

VLAN is not very easy to configure. The product must provide automation of virtualization across VLANs.

I have been using the solution for ten years. I am using the version that came with the original Windows Server 2016.

The tool is very stable. I rate the stability a ten out of ten.

The solution is scalable. I rate the scalability a ten out of ten. In my organization, 3000 people use the solution. Everyone has to access at least one of the services. The product is extensively used in our organization. If the organization grows, we might increase the number of users.

We reach out to a consultant for technical support. We do not use Microsoft’s technical support.

The initial setup is not so difficult. It is quite easy. It took us a week to set up the solution and get it working properly.

We deployed the solution in-house. To deploy the product, we must set up the physical Windows Server. It is a prerequisite for setting up Hyper-V. Then, we put the virtualization software and deploy other servers on the primary server. The deployment process is relatively straightforward. We need a system administrator to manage the tool.

We get a very good return on investment from the tool. We don't have to invest too heavily in any other solutions.

The product comes with Windows Server. It is updated every time there's a new version of Windows Server. There is no separate license for the solution. It is part of Windows Server. There's no additional cost other than having a backup solution to back up the virtual machines. It might just be the cost of any backup software license.

The product is mandatory. It's required for any organization that needs to deploy more than two servers. If any organization uses Windows Server, it is critical to use Hyper-V. I would highly recommend it. Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

I use the solution in my company for hosting the database in SQL Server, which acts as our company's distributor for SQL-based applications.

The most valuable feature of the solution stems from how my company uses Hyper-V for replication. The tool helps our company to automatically failover to another host. My company has to indulge in some maintenance on one node or one host, especially when we want to upgrade patching or do some patching on the host so we can stay on our VMs while on another host, and then we do the changes on that host.

The area revolving around operations in the product has certain shortcomings where improvements are required. The tool should have reduced operation time.

I have been using Hyper-V for 3 years. I use Hyper-V Server 2019. My company is a customer of Microsoft.

Based on my experience with the product, I can say that my company seems to face some delay in the solution when it comes to the area of replication. The server runs normally in our company, but we are unable to figure out why there is a lag or delay in the replication area, because of which we need to cut down on the replication process and initiate it again.

Around three people in my company use the product.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

There is nothing extra required for Hyper-V apart from the licenses that one purchases to use Microsoft Windows.

I have been evaluating VMware against Hyper-V. I feel that VMware is better compared to Hyper-V.

I would not recommend others to use the product.

I rate the overall product a seven out of ten.

My company needs the product for the virtual machines in our environment. The product is also useful in areas like domain controller and Active Directory.

The most valuable feature of the solution is the support team the tool offers its users.

The security part of the product is an area of concern where improvements are required. When I contacted the product's office to raise my concerns about the tool's security, I was told that it would be taken care of in the solution's upcoming versions.

I have been using Hyper-V for two years. My company is a customer of the product.

Only ten percent of the time, there are issues related to breakdowns or bugs in the product.

The product is super effective when it comes to the scalability part. The product also offers super-effective performance.

Around 3,000 people in my company use the product.

The solution's technical support is the best.

I use VMware for orchestration. My company also used to use a product from Microsoft.

The product's initial setup phase is easy, considering that there are online tutorials available.

The solution is deployed on an on-premises model.

The product is a bit expensive, but it is worth the money.

The product's price depends on the scale at which it is used in the company.

My company chose Hyper-V over the other solutions, considering the good performance and support that it offers.

I recommend the product to those who plan to use it.

It is not so easy for a person to learn to use the product for the first time.

In terms of handling workloads, the product is able to handle all of my work in the company. The performance of the product is good.

I rate the overall tool an eight out of ten.

We use the solution to virtualize workflows on physical hosts for various use cases, such as hosting applications and databases. The hosts run Windows OS, with some running Windows Server OS at the endpoint, which allows them to host different workloads, including applications, databases, remote desktops, and other systems. Additionally, we leverage Hyper-V for infrastructure maintenance services, wireless services, and OEM-provided production images. This flexibility lets us choose between buying physical boxes from OEMs or virtualizing their images for our infrastructure.

Hyper-V can expand storage. For instance, if I have a VM running on NetApp or another platform, I can expand the storage without interrupting operations. It is useful when I need to quickly allocate more storage without causing downtime or performing maintenance tasks.

You can use a known physical host and maximize its capabilities with Hyper-V. It can optimize resource utilization on a physical host. Another significant advantage is the ability to create backups of virtual machine images. In case of any issues, you can quickly restore the image or spin up a new virtual machine from the backup. This ensures minimal downtime and faster recovery.

Additionally, you can easily test environments by deploying virtual machines on a separate host. If you need to migrate from a different hypervisor, such as Cisco's, you can perform P2V conversion to transition the workload to Hyper-V. The flexibility and ease of use of Hyper-V make it an invaluable tool for managing virtualized environments

Hyper-V serves its purpose, but some areas may not be as feature-rich as alternatives like VMware ESXi. The resource management capabilities in VMware are more intuitive and efficient for more extensive infrastructures. The difference is in the management of VMs. In Hyper-V, managing VMs can sometimes be more tedious as it requires handling them on a case-by-case basis, whereas VMware offers more streamlined management options.

For high-level management and granular control, VMware ESXi tends to be preferred in extensive virtualized environments. Additionally, VMware has an expensive upfront cost but can offer cost efficiencies in larger deployments due to its scalability and features.

Hyper-V is suitable for smaller environments and may have improved over the years. VMware ESXi often emerges as the preferred choice due to its robust features and management capabilities for larger and more complex virtualization needs.

The integration feature should be added.

I have been using Hyper-V for eight years.

The product is stable. Microsoft solutions have been quite stable once you manage your parts properly.

The solution is scalable. It may not directly translate into immediate returns for the organization but enhances the end-user experience. For instance, when users need to run applications from various vendors like Cisco, the scalability of Hyper-V ensures smooth operations and efficient resource allocation.

The response from Hyper-V support is great. It was quick and helpful because I received a step-by-step breakdown with links to Microsoft documentation for further clarification. Additionally, they offered assistance via a call if needed.

VMware is considered superior in stability, especially for very large enterprises. It offers many features, including robust support for virtual full-time desktops in environments.

As long as you have your Server OS installed or even if it's your endpoint, you need to enable the Virtualization feature. By default, most of the time, it's already turned on within the operating system, so you need to enable it within the VM settings. The setup is much simpler than VMware, which tends to be more complex.

I recommend it for small to medium businesses whose users rely on Microsoft virtualization. You can save costs by leveraging your data center infrastructure. Even larger enterprises have options like licensing up to three VMs per server, which can be extended with data center licensing for scalability. The solution offers flexibility and scalability depending on your infrastructure needs.

Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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. 

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.

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.

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.

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.

I have one host, and I need to run several servers. I created an Active Directory server on it for access and upgrades.

It's very easy to use and very stable.

It is very easy to lear. Anyone with a basic IT background can configure and use Hyper-V with a little bit of knowledge about networking and IP configuration.

Sometimes a server or machine shuts down and doesn't automatically restart. I checked the settings and made some adjustments so that the machine will start when services are stopped. That solved the problem

I've been using it for two years on two servers - one for Active Directory and one for voice.

It's very stable.

On-premises, I use Hyper-V. 

On the cloud, I use VMware.

The initial setup is not difficult at all.

It's very easy to install on the storage or on the server.

I'm in a small company and handle all the IT work.

It's not expensive.

I definitely recommend it. It's easy to use and very reliable.

Overall, I would rate the solution a nine out of ten.