Hyper-V Reviews, Competitors and Pricing

Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees

Aug 30, 2013

Hyper-V has made great strides since it was first released alongside Windows 2008

Hyper-V has made great strides since it was first released alongside Windows 2008. If I were a SMB/small enterprise running mostly a Windows shop and looking into virtualization, I would definitely give it a serious look - it can do most everything I would need for a lot less than vSphere. However, vSphere is still the king as far features, specifically when it comes to availability and DR.

That said, the growth of KVM & Openstack and the community surrounding them excite me more than anything coming down the pipe for either Hyper-V or vSphere.

Disclosure: The company I work for is partners with several vendors - http://www.latisys.com/partners/strategic_partnerships.html

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user8256Senior Manager of Infrastructure with 501-1,000 employees

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Sep 30, 2013

But you have all of these features in Hyper-V (like HA, Clustering, Live Migration and others) for free! If you use ESXi you don't have! You have to go to the pay version to get those features!

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it_user8919

Engineer at a outsourcing company with 51-200 employees

Aug 22, 2013

Has come a long way...but the fact that it uses CSVs... is always going to be a problem

One thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet and would just like to point out is Microsoft lacking to have a true cluster file system. I think Hyper-V has come a long way (very ruff start) but the fact that it uses CSVs, which is just NTFS with a bunch of duck tape... is always going to be a problem. They have made the right steps to enhance their Core server and try to get a lightweight platform to run their hypervisor on but that file system needs to change.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user2652Project Manager at a non-tech company with 10,001+ employees

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Aug 25, 2013

could you please give me more details what are CSVs terms in related to Hyper-V? Is there descriptive article for this?

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reviewer935562

Senior Buyer at a tech services company with 1-10 employees

Nov 1, 2021

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Straightforward installation, but lacking stability

Pros and Cons

"The installation was straightforward."

"I have found it difficult to manage more than one virtual machine."

What is our primary use case?

We use Hyper-V for hardware virtualization.

What needs improvement?

I have found it difficult to manage more than one virtual machine.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Hyper-V for approximately seven months.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Hyper-V is not as stable as VMware and should be improved.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have approximately 20 users using the solution.

How was the initial setup?

The installation was straightforward.

What about the implementation team?

We have a four-person team that consists of an administrator, network administrator, managers, and system administrator that does the maintenance and support of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

I rate Hyper-V a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Public Cloud

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user8223

IT Administrator at a tech services company with 51-200 employees

Jul 31, 2013

Hyper-V 2012

Hyper-V 2012 is a good virtualization product that is suitable for small businesses. The 2012 edition is very simple to use and performance so far is exceptional. I am using Server 2012 with the Hyper-V role in a small remote office to run infrastructure virtual servers.
The setup is very simple, install the Hyper-V role. Configure where you want to save the virtual machine files, and then select to add a new virtual machine. You can apply the desired hardware specs, and one feature that really stands out is dynamic memory allocation. The host server will scale the guest memory allocation as needed and it works very well.
There are better virtualization solutions for large deployments, but for small businesses or a small remote office that only requires a couple of servers, Hyper-V is hard to beat for the cost (included with the OS).

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

it_user1068Tech Support Staff at a tech company with 51-200 employees

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Aug 11, 2013

Hello Jonathon

Would you advise a completely new business to adopt and make use of Hyper-V? Any challenges or problems to expect?

Thank you

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it_user872943

Head of IT Architecture and Design at Alterna Bank

May 22, 2018

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Provides freedom to spin up development and test environments. Needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities.

Pros and Cons

"Hyper-V provided freedom to spin up development and test environments. As projects were created, an environment could be created and applied."

"It needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities."
"Status and availability became an issue and need."

What is our primary use case?

Providing development and test environments for risk management applications. A variety of standard images were created and could be applied as needed.

How has it helped my organization?

Hyper-V provided freedom to spin up development and test environments. As projects were created, an environment could be created and applied.

What is most valuable?

Reasonably easy to use. Snapshots could be prepared and deployed as a developer needed them. As well, environments could be disabled or removed.

What needs improvement?

It needs additional administration and monitoring capabilities. Status and availability became an issue and need.

For how long have I used the solution?

Trial/evaluations only.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.

reviewer849252

System Architect at a tech services company with 11-50 employees

Jan 20, 2019

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A cost-effective and stable solution

Pros and Cons

"It is easy to use, and it is stable. It is a good solution."

"In my opinion, read the documentation carefully. If you do not, you will have problems."

What is our primary use case?

It is a consolidation of Microsoft services that we have on premise.

How has it helped my organization?

It saves us money because we did not have much in terms of this type of service before using this solution.

What is most valuable?

It is easy to use, and it is stable. It is a good solution.

For how long have I used the solution?

More than five years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The stability of the solution is very good.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It can scale. We have 20 users of the solution who are in various positions at our office. We have two staff members to maintain the solution for our organization.

How is customer service and technical support?

We have not used technical support.

How was the initial setup?

The setup was straightforward. It took us around a day to deploy. It was a manual installation which was not hard.

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

The pricing and licensing is pretty good.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We looked at Oracle, but it did not fit our hardware, so we did not choose it.

What other advice do I have?

In my opinion, read the documentation carefully. If you do not, you will have problems.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.