Blah blah broadcom is being mean. Should I just got Hyper-V?
Posted by AV-Guy1989@reddit | sysadmin | View on Reddit | 56 comments
Small setup really with 3 hosts running 37 VMs, center, and iscsi shared storage. With the world being what it is, and them all being windows VMs, does it just make sense to go datacenter and hyper-v? We are up for hardware and software refresh/renewal Jan 2026 so I've been debating the most painless path. My minds says that it makes sense todo hyper-v since it includes licensing for VMs as well so there's a break even cost threshold there for sure somewhere especially with the VMs being 2016 and 2019 now. Unless I am mistaken, I'd be entitled to move those to match the host datacenter level (2022/5 most likely)
Ideas?
illicITparameters@reddit
Why wouldn’t you switch? It’s a no-brainer.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
Certainly seems that way. Now the further debate. Dell or Supermicro, purely budgetary....
pdp10@reddit
Supermicro is more standards-based, with the significant historical weak point being their BMC software. Dell is okay, but they want to sell you an expensive RAID controller whose firmware will bark about any non-Dell drives you attach, and the rail solution is not as elegant as HP's.
Ideally, you rebid/re-RFP at every generational change, and go with the best package on offer.
signal_lost@reddit
Dell is okay, but they want to sell you an expensive RAID controller
While Dell last I heard kept a seperate firmware tree, they sell Broadcom's LSI family MegaRAID controllers the same as SuperMicro (and frankly everyone now that HPE gave up on microsemi).
Historically lifecycle was SuperMicro's weak area but I hear they cooking on things. If your looking for a budget friendly middle ground between Dell and them Lenovo.
USarpe@reddit
What was wrong with SuperMicros lifecycle? I use since 20 years boards the garanty 7 years maintainance.
And the good thing, they are not overloaded with buggy and unsafe stuff, what even has to be payed extra.
signal_lost@reddit
My personal issues, which reminds you this was some time ago, was that updating controller, firmware, and the light required. I basically go boot Free Dos or Linux live disk that had to build and put stuff from the FTP on. Also no HSM for vLCM. Minor standing as this is an area they have been doing work to try to remediate
USarpe@reddit
You could do it with the IPMI-Tool (mount a Image) or with spending 20€ for the Bios Update over the Website,that is where the list start and end for extra payment, remote GUI etc. is and was always included
signal_lost@reddit
To be fair, this was almost 10 years ago. I was managing fat twins. I think they’ve added a bit of tooling since then.
USarpe@reddit
IPMI was exaxtly the same, now the new Generation you even can update the bios over the IPMI
signal_lost@reddit
I’m not worried about updating the IP I I’m worried about updating the network cards and drives and all the other zoo of random hardware attached.
USarpe@reddit
The IP? That's OS.
Also the Driver, but Supermicro offers you to download the lastest Driver-Iso for every board.
Also Supermicro offers you a central management software for all Supermicro machines.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
Sure seems that way
hurkwurk@reddit
the only reason to use VMware or other solutions is when your needs exceed what HyperV can handle either in terms of automation or capabilities.
so if "simple VM hosting" is good enough, yea, it may be worth switching. If noy HyperV, look a the other solutions at as well. VMware has been the market leader a long time, but there are lots of alternatives now.
signal_lost@reddit
so if "simple VM hosting" is good enough
ESXi is still the best hypervisor for commitment and over commitment of resources. At a point of scale in hardware (especially with the memory tiering technology) you have to spend more on hardware to switch.
When RAM costs $10-20 a GB for DDR5, this adds up when you get in the TB of RAM scale.
hurkwurk@reddit
your user name checks out.
pdp10@reddit
I believe you can run "Datacenter" licensing on a per-host basis even if the hypervisor is something completely different, like KVM/Proxmox.
ZAFJB@reddit
Correct. The hypervisor is a don't care as far as Datacenter licencing is concerned. You just have to own Datacenter licences. Nothing has to be installed.
That said, activation is a bit easier of you hypervisor is Hyper-V.
ADynes@reddit
I've been running hyper-v since Server 2008 R2 (somwtime in 2010) and I just deployed a new server 2025 machine a month ago and moved all my old VMS over (with some 2012 and 2019 in between). I don't understand the hate for hyper-v, it has worked great day in and day out for us going in 15 years and other than problems I've caused on my own I've really never had any major issues.
HJForsythe@reddit
The management of HyperV is a joke compared to vCenter
Niceuuuuuu@reddit
What is the HyperV equivalent of vCenter?
ZAFJB@reddit
SCVMM
cheepsheep@reddit
Because Microsoft updates bork your system every month and you can't pick and choose individual fixes anymore!!1!!!
ZAFJB@reddit
No they don't. We can count update related failures on Servers in the last 10 years on the fingers of one hand.
frosty3140@reddit
sconfig.cmd
ADynes@reddit
Yeah, I have not had that experience, at least nothing that stop hyper-v or it's virtual machines from running. Patch Tuesday comes, they gets installed on a non-critical server, few days later another non-critical server, the following weekend all the servers including the hosts.
illicITparameters@reddit
Just because you haven’t had that experience, doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened. It’s quite easy to google.
RCTID1975@reddit
I mean, it's not like VMWare hasn't had issues.
illicITparameters@reddit
Didnt say it doesnt. But the Hyper-V ones are far more often.
illicITparameters@reddit
VMware is still superior, especially in management and orchestration IMO. Also support 🤣
ZAFJB@reddit
Yes. Painless, and reliable.
Datacenter is wonderful. Allows us to have one service, one server.
Buy Windows Server 2025. Downgrade rights will allow you to run older versions as required on your VMs, and your hypervisors too if you wish.
All you need to care about for hardware refresh are:
Be aware of core counts for licencing.
When you move VMs you may need to shutdown, enable Processor Compatability, an restart before you move.
HJForsythe@reddit
There isnt a management product like vcenter for hyper-v though.
RCTID1975@reddit
VMM?
HJForsythe@reddit
That is system center right? System center is being strangled to death as is every on-prem MS product.
ITRetired@reddit
That is the way to go. With Dataceter you'll get unlimited virtualization rights (as long as all the cores are licensed). Always used Hyper-V since Windows Server 2008 (not a very good year, I confess) and never had any reason to switch.
incompletesystem@reddit
I’m testing XCP-NG in a home lab right now. Like it so far seems to be getting a lot of love recently
cats_are_the_devil@reddit
What's your backup solution and does it integrate into hyper-v without added cost? What about legacy apps that might not port over?
LastTechStanding@reddit
Technical debt MUST be paid at some point
Juice_Stanton@reddit
I'm getting ready to roll out some proxmox along with my ESXi. Testing the waters.
All feedback appreciated.
PickUpThatLitter@reddit
Since you use iSCSI, Hyper-V would work best. You would need to migrate to NFS for thin provisioning with other solutions (Proxmox, XCP-NG).
giacomok@reddit
You can use iSCSI on Proxmox just like you can on Hyper-V or VMware, really no biggie.
pdp10@reddit
NFS is a delight to use because it's so low-touch, but I believe thin provisioning can work fine with iSCSI as long as your storage is configured to pass TRIM/UNMAP all the way down the stack. Arrays can provision a given LUN thin, and if Linux LVM is present in the stack then make sure that
issue_discards = 1is in your/etc/lvm/lvm.conf.shikkonin@reddit
Err...no.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
I went supermicro for a 4 server CCTV deployment. Found the ipmi to be adequate honestly. Pretty tempting these days
skronens@reddit
Apache Cloudstack is an option as well.
siedenburg2@reddit
If you have many windows machines running you won't have much problems with hyper-v and licensing. Switch was easy for us, we have nearly 100 windows vms, so it's even way cheaper. Also Hyper-V runs way smoother, the only thing we miss is vcenter.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
Can't you use VMM for managing your clusters? What are you doing for shared storage? We are 100% windows VMs and only going to keep growing
siedenburg2@reddit
If you mean SCVMM, that needs an extra license as far as i know. For now we use mainly the failover cluster manager with remote connection to the cluster ip, works, isn't that great, but usable.
For storage we went with storage in our hyper-v server (nvme based) and use the windows cluster mechanics to replicate it on each host, so that we still could run everything on one host if the other dies.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
Idk if I like that storage plan but I definitely understand it's use case and why it was chosen. I just see unused idle storage and my eye lid twitches slightly.
siedenburg2@reddit
unused idle storage can be valuable in cases of emergency, learned that with our older esx on hp vsa systems. 1h downtime is more expensive then idle storage for both servers, even with hp prices.
Servers are connected with 100g to our core network and they also are connected to each other with 100g to keep everything in sync. moving active vms from one machine to the other takes seconds without downtime and if i create a new machine the os install takes longer than the sync to the other host.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
I'd be running at 25gbps for everything. Gonna need to do some tinkering in the lab late some night and lose track of myself and create a monstrosity of thrown together hyper-v cluster with storage and then start breaking it...see if I like it
siedenburg2@reddit
For us we didn't have much to choose from, our sw vendors say "esx, hyper-v or bare metal, or you won't get support", else I would've tested proxmox, opennebula, nutanix and openstack to compare them
Graham99t@reddit
Have you tried proxmox?
Ruachta@reddit
We do Hyper-V clusters in a lot of smaller environments. It works well enough and is cost effective.
For larger DC's we are doing proxmox when the client does not want to pay the Broadcom tax.
AV-Guy1989@reddit (OP)
Whats your separation point between larger and smaller? At whay VM and host count does it grow up and graduate to a larger setup?
OpacusVenatori@reddit
Match or not, doesn't matter if the hosts are licensed for Server 2025. If you purchased from the appropriate channel you'll have access to Downgrade Rights, which allows you to run corresponding previous-versions. Host licensed for 2025 Datacenter Edition will essentially grant you rights to run a guest OS of any previous Windows Server version.
USarpe@reddit
Hyper-v does not have VM-licence. After 2019 there is no free standalone Hyperv,
But a Standard Windows 202X you can use the Host free plus 2 VM
Datacenter gives you unlimited VM per Server.
HypeV ist fast and reliable, I run it since 2008