More on Hyper-V and NIC Teaming

Andrew,

I’m not just bashing Hyper-V for the sake of bashing Hyper-V. I’m pointing out what I feel is a significant problem in a vendor’s solution. Note that I’ve done the same to VMware in the past. I’m an equal opportunity basher.

With regards to your notes:

- One of the KB articles is about Virtual Server, the other is about Windows Server clustering, including Windows Server 2008.

- No one is disputing that Microsoft is not a networking expert. Again, my biggest beef is that Microsoft has not even provided a framework in which NIC vendors can provide fault tolerance.

- I was not aware that Broadcom did allow you to mix vendors in a team. I do agree, though, that doing so adds a layer of complexity that would be better avoided if at all possible.

Finally, with regard to cost: I would just say that you get what you pay for. If you truly need an enterprise-class virtualization solution, then you need VMware, and the cost reflects the functionality. Hyper-V’s not there in that space yet. If you need an entry-level virtualization solution, then Hyper-V will work for you, and its cost reflects that as well.

Andrew,

I don’t want to get into an ideological debate with you regarding VMware’s pricing, but I will say that VMware is free to charge whatever they like for their products, just as Microsoft is. Some would say that Microsoft’s prices for Windows Vista are as ridiculous as VMware’s VI3 pricing, if not more so.

Also, take a look at the per-VM costs for each of the major virtualization solutions…you may be surprised at the outcome.

With regards to application virtualization, I don’t know that I would say it’s going to “crash the party,” but I will say that it was a smart move for VMware to buy Thinstall. Microsoft is coming on strong in the desktop virtualization space; although they have yet to deliver some concrete products, the technology looks solid. VMware had to be prepared to compete.

Finally, about EtherChannel: EtherChannel (or LACP) is a good technology, and it works well in the right situations. It’s not the right fit in all cases, virtualized or not. I’ve used it in some VMware deployments, and in some VMware deployments we just use NIC teaming. In network-to-network connections (say, between switches), it makes a lot of sense. From a server to a switch…well, that depends upon what the server is doing, what kinds of traffic it’s generating, how many clients are connecting, etc.

Chris,

No worries about “jumping in late”–I’ve been loosely following your comments at the Catalyst ‘08 conference.

I think that all most readers really want is just for Microsoft to acknowledge that Windows needs a NIC teaming framework. Even if Microsoft can’t (or won’t) provide that functionality themselves, they should at least provide a supported framework for third-party vendors to use.

Thanks for reading, and for adding your thoughts!

GeoTech,

Thanks for sharing your experience. I think that everyone agrees it will probably work just fine. A lot of people, though, are just uncomfortable running enterprise workloads with configurations that are “unsupported.”