I have extensive experience with VMware, but wanted to setup Hyper-V home lab and learn it. I have a desktop with 8-core AMD processor and 32GB RAM, with 400GB SSD, so I intent to install two Hyper-V VM inside VMware workstation, with 4vCPU, and 12GB, I will also have one Win2008 R2 (1vCPU, 4GB) as DC, and another windows 2012 R2 (to install System Center 2012, I have the CD key). I have dedicated NAS for shared storage. I have the following question.

1). Is System Center the Microsoft solution similar to VMware vCenter 5.5?  Can I do shared storage?  Live migration (My Hyper-V is free bare-bone installation), how about HA, FT?

2). VMware has the vSphere client, presumably Hyper-V manager (installed on windows 8.1 or Winserver 2012 R2) is Microsoft's answer to that, my understanding is even though I use bare-bone Hyper-V, my function is not limited in anyway compare to type-2 Hyper-V installed inside Windows 2012 server, am I right?

3). Microsoft obviously pus their new OS very hard, so using Hyper-V 2012 R2, can I use Windows XP, Windows server 2012 ?  I strongly suspect Microsoft would intentionally limit the scope to protect their OS business.

   thanks a lot for your answer. 

Hi,

Great questions, hopefully i can answer them for you:

1) System Center is a big suite of products (SCOM, SCSM, DPM, SCCM, VMM, SCORCH). Put together you can create a fully automated infrastructure / datacenter. I wouldn't say Systems Center is the same as vCenter. I would say that Hyper-V manager is the equivalent to vCenter in that it is used to manage your virtual machines. VMM (Virtual Machine Manager) can also be used to manage your virtual machines. Virtual Machine Manager is the equivalent to Vmwares Orcestrator and VDirector products. Yes Hyper- does use HA and FT built in. yes you can do live migrations of VMs and storage migrations

2) Yes you can install the remote administration tools on your windows client and manage your Hyper-v server from your desktop https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download/details.aspx?id=7887

You can pretty much run all your servers from using the remote administration tools and also remote powershell commands

3) yes you can run Windows xp as a virtual machine and windows server 2012 and all the other OS released from Microsoft. If your setting up your Hyper-V server i would go with Server 2012-r2

The short answers:

Yes, SCVMM is the simulant to vCenter.  But unlike vCenter, it is not required for HA, migration, etc.  It focuses on VM lifecycle events and fabric lifecycle events.  It is not a necessity, it is an add-on.  (it is definitely not an apples to apples product equivalent)

If you use SCVMM< then you use the SCVMM console.  If you use Hyper-V alone, then you use the Hyper-V Management Console (and the Failover Cluster Manager Console for HA VMs).

I am not clear on #3.  Use the latest release of all of the OSes / Products.  2012 R2 of everything, it makes no sense to learn using older versions. 

You can run an OS for free for 180 days and SCVMM has a pre-installed evaluation VHD you can download.

As far as running things on VMware Workstation.  Yes, it (barely) 'works' but that is it. 

Also, you mention 'type-2 Hyper-V' - Hyper-V is a type-1 hypervisor, just like ESX.  It is designed to run on bare metal (just like ESX).

    I got system Server 2012 R2 for free through my school. Yes, everything I have would be 2012 R2, even my books, I got John Savill's book and his youtube video (with great detail), so if I rephrase your answers: basically if I have two Hyper-V hosts installed as "bare bone" [during installation onto VMware workstation, I would install it as Windows Server 2012 R2, then I install VMware tools], I have 200GB iSCSi from my NAS, then I have Windows 8.1 Pro, I add Hyper-V manager to windows 8.1, then I manage Hyper-V from Windows 8.1, so am I going to have  capability equivalent to VMware: HA/FT, virtual switch, vMotion, iscsi multipathing, NIC teaming/failover?  

    So I am a large corporation, I could install 5,000 Hyper-V 2012 barebone (FREE), and just purchase 5 copies  of System Center 2012 R2, then I can build a private cloud, with huge savings versus VMware vSphere licensing? (their ESXi Enterprise Plus is expensive)?   Sounds too good to be true lol?

     Also if I am a large company who want to have 200 Windows 2012 Datacenter R2 server, I might just get one huge server (with as many Xeon CPU as possible) with 2TB RAM, then buy the Windows 2012 Datacenter R2,because it already gives me unlimited VMs inside this server.   But if I want to run Windows 2003/2008 (all licensed from Microsoft), and mostly Linux OSes, I can take advantage of the free Hyper-V server, am I right?

• Edited by Norman75 14 hours 44 minutes ago add a few things

Yes, you would have all of the features you list.  And didn't even touch the need for SCVMM yet.

Now, each SCVMM 'stamp' is unique - they do not talk to each other.  they do not cross.  There is not a higher level aggregator for multiple SCVMM instances ('stamps' is the term MSFT uses).

And yes, you can install and use "Hyper-V Server" (the free sku).

You are still responsible for the OS licenses of the VMs. (just as with VMware).

There is no argument that the MSFT solution is less expensive than the equivalent VMware solution.  That is never the point of discussion.