Forum Discussion
Hyper-V Server 2022
Free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product update
Since its introduction over a decade ago in Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V technology has been, and continues to be, the foundation of Microsoft’s hypervisor platform. Hyper-V is a strategic technology for Microsoft. Microsoft continues to invest heavily in Hyper-V for a variety of scenarios such as virtualization, security, containers, gaming, and more. Hyper-V is used in Azure, Azure Local, Windows Server, Windows Client, and Xbox among others.
Starting with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019, the free ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Server’ product has been deprecated and is the final version of that product. Hyper-V Server 2019 is a free product available for download from the Microsoft Evaluation Center: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 will continue to be supported under its lifecycle policy until January 2029, see this link for additional information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/hyperv-server-2019.
While Microsoft has made a business decision to no longer offer the free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product, this has no impact to the many other products which include the Hyper-V feature and capabilities. This change has no impact to any customers who use Windows Server or Azure Local.
For customers looking to do test or evaluation of the Hyper-V feature, Azure Local includes a 60-day free trial and can be downloaded here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-local/ . Windows Server offers a free 180-day evaluation which can be downloaded from the Evaluation Center here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter
Microsoft remains committed to meeting customers where they are and delivering innovation for on-premises virtualization and bringing unique hybrid capabilities like no other can combined with the power of Azure Arc. We are announcing that Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 was the last version of the free download product and that customers begin transitioning to one of the several other products which include Hyper-V or consider Azure.
Thank you,
Elden Christensen
Principal Group PM Manager
Windows Server Development Team
MicrosoftThanks!
Elden
I apparently overlooked a critical requirement of Stack, which is the fact that minimum footprint is a multi-node cluster. This completely eliminates the ability for SMB to use this platform, even if it was free. 80% of our SMB clients are single physical server. SMB does not need this complexity and infrastructure overhead.
As it stands, to make Stack work for SMB it would need to allow single host systems AND not have a cost for whatever feature parity HVS has now. Perhaps the multi-host bit is where the licensing kicks in (if you want multiple hosts in a cluster). Short of this, you're basically withdrawing entirely from the SMB space as a whole from a Hypervisor standpoint.
That WILL eliminate all of those systems from adopting Azure in any capacity later for IaaS. Why would you do that!? For the "hope" of getting $10/core (not going to happen in SMB so you will throw this entire segment away)? Why not reframe this and make Stack single-server capable but only with feature-parity to Hyper-V Server. Buy the licensing to get multi-host and the bells and whistles that is the advantage in the Azure/Stack interface. How could you go wrong here?
This would be viewed as the Freemium model to get everyone into Azure! How is this being missed? SMB grows and when they grow they would then either buy Stack Licensing (in my scenario where single server is free) OR will consume Azure IaaS - IF they have a smooth path to doing so. If everyone switches platforms, you just created a giant barrier and friction to then move back or use Azure later.
Stack, as you outlined it (costs and hardware requirements) really only has one segment: Datacenters. hey are the only place that would LOVE Stack, but also would happily pay the license costs for Stack I imagine.
Absent something like I laid out would mean killing this entry into the ecosystem. This greatly raises the question if Microsoft values SMB as a whole, and goes against the claim of security being a concern since the best practice is to use a virtualized OS for your server. Running Windows Server on bare metal (bad idea!), to then run the HV role, to then run the Server OS we actually want to use is.... madness!
Is there any consideration of the plan as I laid out? My idea solves all the problems and still provides a path for NEW revenue for MS, gets everyone into Stack, while keeping the linear growth path leading to Azure while keeping everyone in the ecosystem. Come on, who do I need to do a song and dance to get people on board for this one? This idea is winner-winner-chicken-dinner, I'm certain of it!
To not do so would mean that Prostetnic Vogon Jeltz is actually running things and would mean that I have to say so long, and thanks for all the fish....
MinkusMe Footprint isn't meant to talk about disk space size. I meant footprint in terms of resource usage/performance penalties, but the attack surface being the substantially larger concern. I am pretty sure most MSP providers such as us would agree here that a flat bare metal hypervisor is far far preferable than running inside another full OS.
I am fully onboard with using Stack; the challenge is solving the SMB segment. Needs to have parity with HVS, both in cost and features/requirements though for reasons stated already. Anything short of that means Microsoft will have no place in the Hypervisor role for any SMB which would be a mistake for reasons already stated.
Making the entry level Stack with only bare min features as what HVS had a free tier on Stack is perfect way forward. Get multi-hosts and the full stack features with licensing. Solves all concerns and provides path forward towards more revenue for MS as they grow.
This solution should be a no brainer.
bmartindcs I think you've made an excellent point regarding future adoption of Azure - by not providing any 'free' hypervisor, small shops who may not have the cash for an inital license will use other hypervisor products - running ESXi, Xen, or KVM - and if they do later migrate to the cloud, they'll want to migrate to cloud providers where there's no need to convert - AWS, or VMWare Cloud. The free Hyper-V product would be a 'gateway' for such companies encouraging them to remain within Azure, once lost, forever lost.
I don't think your 'footprint and attack surface' concern is one to push though - although the disk footprint is larger, as I understand it, Windows Server Core with the Hyper-V role has basically the same components 'in memory' as a Hyper-V Server - unless you can demonstrate that's not the case? I think therefore Microsoft's engineers might say the footprint and attack surface grounds are largely baseless - but the 'entry level' option, requirement for 2 nodes, and lack of discount for nonprofits et al is a bigger concern for me.