ESXi or Hyper-V?

[majorpay]

I know this is like asking what operating system to use on an Apple forum, but I am responsible for building an enormous server (4 Xeon 10c, 256gb RAM) and am trying to cost justify which direction I should go.

While I love the flexibility and interface of ESXi, and would love to see it on this machine, I am having an issue with justifying it over the current DataCenter with Hyper-V offerings.

The problem is that we will be primarily a Microsoft shop.  We will be utilizing SQL Server, IIS, and leveraging several different Microsoft products in development.  While ESXi would fit the bill for this, Microsoft offers an unlimited number of virtual machines on top of DataCenter.  What this translates to is: I could potentially have 40 instances of Windows 2008 running on the server for the price of one (or rather one times the number of physical processors).  Of course, it would be highly unlikely that I would ever actually do this, but the fact remains that the potential is there.

All this isn't to say that Hyper-V doesn't have it's shortcomings as well.  I would like to setup a PFSense firewall, and have the flexibility to run a few Ubuntu servers and perhaps other variations of Linux for testing.  Hyper-V at this point is really not geared for this, but I know that you can get Ubuntu server to install with some minor tweaking, but the spectrum of Linux offerings is a short one and requires a great deal of tweaking for some.  I have also read varying reports on the glitches and speed issues with PFSense running on Hyper-V.

So at the end of the day, I am stuck with a one-time purchase deal.  The financier is going to purchase whatever I want, but this offer will likely not extend past the initial deployment.  Looking at the initial cost, ESXi comes out costing more, but also has far more flexibility and features.  Ultimately though, if I go with Hyper-V, I am unrestrained on the number of licenses for additional Windows servers.

What's a guy to do?

[AndreTheGiant]

Datacenter cost does not depend if you run on Hyper-V or ESXi.

So this not enough.

And remember that ESXi have a better memory management, so with the same memory you can run more VMs on ESXi.

Andre

[majorpay]

DataCenter will run on both ESXi and Hyper-V, but the difference is that with Hyper-V, DataCenter has a licensing model that allows you to deploy any version of Server 2008 as many times as you like within Hyper-V without additional purchase of O.S. licenses.  As far as I'm aware, this licensing model does not extend to ESXi virtual machines.

[AndreTheGiant · Accepted solution]

Same rule can be applied to ESX/ESXi, XenServer, RHEV.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/licensing-datacenter.aspx

It only require a compatibile platform for Windows Server   

http://www.windowsservercatalog.com/default.aspx

Andre

[majorpay]

So are you saying that if you have a 4 CPU DataCenter license for a machine, that you can utilize the licensing model to activate the various Windows Server licenses included on any hypervisor, not just Hyper-V?  And the activation of the sub-products goes without a hitch in this model?  If that's the case, this would certainly fix the situation.

1 4CPU purchase of DataCenter, and 1 4 CPU purchase of ESXi, although an expensive combination, would cover the requirement of having both ESXi and the unlimited licensing model?

[AndreTheGiant]

I confirm...

Microsoft has "certified" several hypervisors... not only Hyper-V. For each of them you can use the same OS licensing rule.

More details are on the document called PUR (Products User Rights). Search for it on MS site.

Andre

[ewilts]

It does apply to ESXi - we're doing this today.  We purchase 2-socket (6-cores per socket) blades and then buy 2 DataCenter 2008 R2 licenses per blade.  We run as many Windows guests as we can fit based on memory and CPU requirements.

For remote sites where we may have only 1 or 2 Windows guests, we license by the guest instance instead.

[AndreTheGiant]

It's does not make any difference between ESX/ESXi or the free VMware Hypervisor.

Are all part the vSphere suite, and this is a certified platform for run Windows Server.

Andre

[macpiano]

I can relate a story if that helps. About 2 years ago a Data service type center said they built VM servers just gettng started in virtual stuff. A couple months later I saw them and they said Oh we tore down all the VMware and put in Hyper-V. They said since it was Microsoft they thought it would be better. I was taliking to them the other day and I asked how Hyper v was going and they Oh we took that out a long time because we were endlessly trying to get Hyper V to work and we got VMware up in 1 day.