Hyper-V

Our company use Hyper-V virtualization software for production servers and replication of virtual machines between multiple physical hosts. It allows to isolate our VMs from hardware level and run multiple VMs on one host. For example, production software servers plus Domain controllers plus File shares all in one host computer.

• Saving $ on server hardware by running multiple server VM at once
• License savings for Microsoft licensing

VMware ESXi, VMware Fusion, VMware Workstation Pro and AWS Organizations

VMware ESXi, AWS Backup, AWS Certificate Manager, AWS Service Catalog

It helps to setup, maintain and troubleshoot virtual machines to critical services like application and data servers, phone systems, email backup appliances, etc.

• No upfront cost giving that you have already workstations and servers you can use it on
• In-house deployment so costs are reduced to the antivirus/backup solution of your choice
• In-house migration of VMs between hosts so the cost is only for a new host

VMware Workstation Player and VMware Workstation Pro

We use Hyper-V in our organization for Virtual servers with various roles and also for virtual clients for test applications.

Our scope of use case has two main cases first having virtual servers to update/upgrade servers easily/revert changes or bring servers back online from backups and also having virtual clients for testing new applications, group policy rules, and other organizational changes

• Based on windows OS environment.
• Easy to install and remove.
• Efficient resource management.
• Clean and easy user interface.

• With Hyper-V implementing new software or rules on a test, beds take fewer resources and time which is a great bonus.
• Virtual SAN management and Virtual Switch management make it easy to manage network and storage options.
• Editing the disk option made us resize disks on the fly and saved us maintenance, production time, and costs.

VMware ESXi

VMware ESXi, Citrix Workspace

Hyper-V comes with specific Microsoft licenses to our organization so we use it as a "freebie" which makes it more desirable in some cases than any other virtualization solution simply because we don't need to pay hefty Enterprise-grade licenses. We do use Hyper-V in a rather simplistic way - host servers and guest VMs on each one. However, for this purpose alone we are pretty satisfied with what we get. In a previous company, I was a part of the efforts for automated provisioning of VMs in Hyper-V and even though it required A LOT of reading semi-internal documentation and some in-depth posts, we got it running in a pretty stable state.

• Licensing and cost - you can have a deal with Microsoft and get Hyper-V licenses as a part of a bigger licensing contract. Thus, Hyper-V can be an Enterprise-grade solution that you get essentially for free which may even include support from Microsoft.
• Ease of use by less experienced people - the GUI is very easy to navigate and use. I have used Hyper-V on multiple workstations and my experience translated easily to managing Hyper-V on physical servers.
• Stability - Hyper-V provisioned VMs are pretty stable.

• Because Hyper-V licenses were essentially free, that allowed us to have multiple Hyper-V-based hosts for our business needs.
• Ease of use - the people who manage Hyper-V were able to do so very quickly because of the ease of use of the product.

vSphere, VMware ESXi and OpenVZ

VMware vCenter Server, Microsoft Teams, Jenkins

Hyper-V is our preferred hypervisor, as all our techs are familiar with the Microsoft universe already they quickly learn how to manage the software without a need to learn a second Operating System, this familiarity allows us to quickly roll out new systems as needed and to troubleshoot those systems the rare times it has been needed.

• Ease of use.
• Speed of deployment.
• Low cost of licensing.

• Low/no cost makes ROI very attractive.
• The fact it already exists on most server installs means little to no downtime for deployment.
• Minimizes costs as upgrading RAM is much cheaper then additional servers.

VMware vCenter Server, VMware ESXi and Citrix Hypervisor (formerly XenServer)

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365), Microsoft Windows, WordPress