4 ms·
Having used, extensively and in anger, Hyper-V 2008/R2/2012, VMWare ESXi 4 thru 5.5 and (Citrix) XenServer, for Windows and Linux VM's, my personal favourite is
by windowsworkstoo 11y ago
Having used, extensively and in anger, Hyper-V 2008/R2/2012, VMWare ESXi 4 thru 5.5 and (Citrix) XenServer, for Windows and Linux VM's, my personal favourite is XenServer.
Hyper-V works, but has terrible admin tooling, especially if not on a domain
VMWare is a fine hypervisor and if you are happy with what it provides then ESXi free is hard to beat
But if you want a cluster on the cheap, with proper clustering support, XenServer is hard to beat. I use this extensively especially in SMB and also local dev environments - a couple of Xen Servers backed by fastish NFS SAN's. Easy to maintain and administer. Good tooling both from a GUI and CLI point of view, without actually having to dish out any money.
That said, if someone else was paying, ESX would be just as good if you needed vMotion/vStorageMotion etc.
- lewisl9029 11y agoAgreed on the horrible Hyper-V tooling. I still use it begrudgingly though, because my dev machine is also a gaming machine, and Hyper-V GPU passthrough to the primary OS (Windows) is nigh seamless and doesn't require any configuration. Also, my dev machine also happens to be a laptop, and Hyper-V supports many advanced power management features (like connected standby), that are not well-supported on any other hypervisor as far as I'm aware of (many of them have trouble with even going into/resuming from sleep/hibernation in the first place when I last tried them).
- cakes 11y agoThe difference between Hyper-V tooling on a domain vs off a domain is really shocking. The tool sets you get on a domain can be useful...off a domain...I'll pass entirely.