Solved Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?
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@thwr already mentioned the free version of Five Nines software. Granted not as all encompassing as XO, but pretty nice.
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@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
If you can get away with only using XenCenter or XO, sure.
That's my point. When used as designed, you can.
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I didn't do anything outside the norm other than have a boot partition failure.
I suppose you'll say I was non norm because I was using a USB stick...
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@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
But even my super simple two VM setup tan into a problem where I had to learn how to find the VDI, how to mount it, etc. Definitely something that is easier for my personal experience to do in Windows.
Now I can't remember, but what was it that you did that caused it?
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
But even my super simple two VM setup tan into a problem where I had to learn how to find the VDI, how to mount it, etc. Definitely something that is easier for my personal experience to do in Windows.
Now I can't remember, but what was it that you did that caused it?
USB stick failed.
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@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@thwr already mentioned the free version of Five Nines software. Granted not as all encompassing as XO, but pretty nice.
Right, have to add a commercial third party application and you get very limited functionality. Yes, it can be done, but XO is now semi-official (recommended interface from XS themselves) and is extremely comprehensive. Hyper-V you have to keep adding different pieces for different functionality.
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Sure I suppose the normal fix would be rebuild and restore. 800 GB later. Ug slow restore.
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@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
I didn't do anything outside the norm other than have a boot partition failure.
I suppose you'll say I was non norm because I was using a USB stick...
Yes, I explicitly made that point above. Doing USB boots, using software RAID.... these are things that Hyper-V doesn't support either and are outside of the scope of the product. It's fine to USB boot for either, but every case of someone saying that XS is hard always turns out to be someone going outside of accepted use or doing something super advanced or doing something that is just as hard or harder on Hyper-V. Did you try Hyper-V from USB and have no problems?
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I feel like XS gets the same "marketing" argument that Linux does. Person does something simple with Windows, says it's easy. Then the first thing that they try to do with Linux is something that Windows literally can't do at all and even thought they eventually get it to work on Linux and never could on Windows, they call Linux hard even when they just proved it was easier. Not that Hyper-V is impossible to run from USB, but follow threads on it, it's not easy and there are disputes about it being supported (MS recommends it, but claims not to support it... it's convoluted.)
XS allows it, but it's not within the support scope, and it is up to you to know the logging and such and to configure that correctly out of the gate. Not really different from Hyper-V there, but if you don't do that, the issue isn't with XS.
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@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
But even my super simple two VM setup tan into a problem where I had to learn how to find the VDI, how to mount it, etc. Definitely something that is easier for my personal experience to do in Windows.
Now I can't remember, but what was it that you did that caused it?
USB stick failed.
That's not an XS problem. That was a combination of hardware failure possibly randomly or possibly from misconfiguration (it wasn't read only, right?) Not XS problems. Not XS being hard.
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Hyper-V is definitely easy if you are an experience Windows Admin that is experience and versed in the tools used for it. That's why Jared finds it easy, but he's in the top 5% of Windows Admins, maybe the top 1%. I've worked in very large multi-billion dollar companies with loads of six figure Windows Admins who would be totally lost as to how Hyper-V works and how to manage it because they don't use the RSAT, Server Admin, PowerShell or other "how it is supposed to be done" tools.
And then, still, only easy if you are using Windows systems to manage it. Which many do, but it is a requirement for it to be easy. So there is a cost there, even if only of lock in.
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
I am at a point to choose Hyper V Free or ESXi 6 Free.
This one is simple. When using a free hypervisor, your reasonable options are Hyper-V, XenServer and KVM. ESXi Free should never really even get considered. VMware ESXi only has value when you are paying for Essentials or more, and even then it's questionable as it does not come with support, so many consider Essentials Plus to be the minimum viable option for VMware ESXi. With the singular exception of a lab where you are using ESXi Free solely for the purpose of learning ESXi, the free edition should not even be mentioned - there is no business case where it is acceptable to use it.
Except, of course, where an application vendor demands that you use ESXi for their product and you have no choice in the matter.
I see. I was testing VMWare Esxi 6 free, which seems okay to manage, but may better to leave it as you are recommending specifically at business.
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
I am about to roll one of the above or any other better free Virtualization solution on Lenovo ThinkServer TS140.
Your shortlist should be Hyper-V and XenServer. These are the two free products that make the most sense in the SMB market. KVM is a good product but requires a level of expertise that these do not. XenServer is vastly more mature and much easier to use than Hyper-V and has a free ecosystem around it that makes extended use much more cost effective as well.
Yeah, I short listed with Hyper-V and XenServer. No for KVM.
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
b. Free VMs Backup software availability
XenServer + XenOrchestra gives you backups built in and free.
Hyper-V you will need to add backup software, like Veeam, to do backups.
Actually I tried to evaluate XenServer long ago, but was not able to setup it on Lenovo M93p desktop for some reason, so I gave it up.
Just now, spin the XenServer 7 on ESXi VM
to check XenCenter and XenOrchestra free.With XenCenter, it seems okay to manage and tried to setup XenOrchestra but something not okay due to Nested VM, network etc. , I am not able to get in for XO. I guess, I need to set it up directly on server instead of nested VM to test it better ?
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@thwr said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
c. Easily manageable comparitely
XenServer is much easier than Hyper-V when starting from scratch on both. XenServer is super easy, and XenOrchestra (free) makes it even easier.
Wouldn't subscribe this. We got quite a few threads here with users struggling with XS for some reason or another. But Hyper-V is also complex enough on its own
Just had a look at the latest "5nine Manager for Hyper-V" free edition, which is pretty good. Most day to day tasks can also be accomplished by just using Hyper-V or Failover-Cluster Manager and PowerShell.
For me, Hyper-V seems to be not that much easier than XenServer and ESXi due to interface. At first, I was having issues to connect it with Hyper-V Manager, and disabled firewall at all to setup (which is not recommended) and not familiar with PowerShell.
But the idea of 5nine free is good idea, and I tried to download it but I think, it will allow Pro for 30 trial first then to Free one ? which I don't want to use Pro at all bcoz I will disappoint by looking at free (due to low features)
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@thwr said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
Wouldn't subscribe this. We got quite a few threads here with users struggling with XS for some reason or another. But Hyper-V is also complex enough on its own
But none doing a simple install. All doing something advanced, abnormal or officially unsupported. Using XS as it is meant to be used is super simple. If you want to do SD card installs (sadly we had to learn that that was too hard), software RAID and other outside of the standard box installs, it gets hard. Hyper-V is hard and confusing even for "by the book" installs. XenServer's software RAID is hard, for example, but on ESXi it is impossible (impossible is infinitely hard.) So you can't compare in that way. And Hyper-V's software RAID is unsafe, so essentially impossibly hard.
How about physical RAID with XenServer 7, no issues/complex I guess ?
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@scottalanmiller said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@Dashrender said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
I agree. If you can admin a Windows server, you can probably admin a Hyper-v. But unless you know Linux, you'll have a hard time with this.
You should not need to do that. That's what I'm talking about. XenServer under normal circumstances should be run completely without going to the command line. XenServer doesn't even require you to know Linux at all - you install as designed, then admin from a GUI. If you try to do things outside of the supported activities, of course it is hard.
Hyper-V is very hard and super confusing even for experienced Windows admins. I've seen few things so much cause Windows admins to get lost. If anything, I'd say that knowing Windows seems to make Hyper-V harder from what I've seen on SW. Linux admins don't have issues with it, but Windows Admins almost always do. Hyper-V isn't bad if you know extensive Windows administration the Microsoft way with remote tools and command line commands and you *have an existing Windows support infrastructure. Whereas XenServer is platform agnostic and uses a simple web GUI (XO) or Windows client (XC.) Both of which are missing from Hyper-V.
I agree that, XenCenter seems bit easier than Hyper-V Manager even, because no need to nail into XenServer to configure unlike Hyper-V Manager (where you will nail into CMD to allow admin computer, configure firewall etc.)
Good part for me with XenServer is, I understand it is built on CentOS, which I am bit familiar, just in case if require to nail into. But of course, once I setup the XenServer, only thing I may do is setting up Static IP and that's it, and play on XenCenter but not directly on XenServer.
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@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
How about physical RAID with XenServer 7, no issues/complex I guess ?
No issues as long as your hardware is on the HCL.
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@Danp said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
@openit said in Free bare metal virtualization, HyperV free or VMware ESXi 6 free or else ?:
How about physical RAID with XenServer 7, no issues/complex I guess ?
No issues as long as your hardware is on the HCL.
Same thing applies to ESXi or Hyper-V. If you want to be supported and in a known working condition check the HCL first.
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Mmmh, my POV is that ESXi free and HyperV are out of game for reasons above, but I see KVM on par of XS; for GUI-centric user and standardized use case XS is better than KVM, but it you want to build a little of automation and go beyond what is provided by the standard XS installation, I think that today KVM is better. KVM is as hard (or as easy) as a standard Linux distro, XS is easy if you go with the default routes but very hard if you want to go elsewhere… like file-based thin vm storage, for example. Libvirt is simple, but not easy. Oh, XS win over plain KVM regarding the networking (default OpenvSwitch). I got my eyes on the latest oVirt release.
