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GlenBarney1
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Re: Hyper-V Server 2022
Thank you again Elden_Christensen for engaging with this thread and dealing with all of the complaining that is being leveled unfairly at you. There is as always a large silent majority that I think is grateful for Microsoft and what it brings to the world. I grew up with Microsoft, from BASCOM for the TRS-80 way back when, all the way through today. I'm a (small) customer, a (small) partner, and a (small) shareholder, so I look at this from lots of different perspectives. I used Hyper-V Server 2019, and was sad at the news as were many people (because who doesn't love free stuff?!) but I understand and agree that Microsoft can't be investing tons of money in giving away free things. It doesn't scale, and it doesn't help. Everyone here needs to understand that Microsoft didn't celebrate this decision, any more than they might celebrate layoffs or any other trimming. They're not sitting around in some room going "Ha ha ha, let's get 'em!" They would much rather be all things to all people. But they just can't right now. It's clear they gave it long thought, and did this because they believed it would be in the best interests of everyone's future. At the end of the day, many of us, myself included, want Microsoft to survive, and grow, and thrive, because Microsoft brings a lot of good to us all. And if that means shedding some free stuff, whether it's HyperV or SQL... or trimming in other ways, there are many out there who support Microsoft and want it to survive. I would hate to live in a world where Microsoft wasn't pushing technology ahead. Elden_ChristensenI hope you will convey these things to your team. There are lots of us out here who appreciate Microsoft, and you specifically, and I at least want to make sure you know that. For everyone else: If you are a home user, and can't afford anything at all, HyperV 2019 is not going anywhere. You can still get it! It's still supported. It's got 6 more years ahead of it - with an extended end date (I just looked) of January 2029. Go download it. Play with it. Have fun! It's still there! Or, how about just running your workloads on HyperV under Windows 11? That works too, and it's not going anywhere, and it's just fine! AND FREE with your Windows 11 Pro license. Or, if you're a home user but can't stand the thought of using a Hypervisor with ONLY six more years of support, grab something like XO. For everyone else, the employees and the companies out there, we should all be paying for what we use. I can't get my dayjob to pay for squat, so they're on XO for now. But for my consulting stuff, I paid for a Datacenter 2022 license, and yes, it was expensive, but it was a worthwhile investment, and highly recommended. But let's not be beating on the Microsoft rep because we don't like the fact that our lollipop isn't everlasting. Elden's doing us all a favor by even engaging here, and even if you don't agree with a corporate decision, he nevertheless deserves our thanks, not our derision.7.6KViews4likes5CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_Christensen Speaking only for myself (but likely for many others) I just want to express appreciation to Microsoft for listening. Even if we all don't get what we want all the time, the very fact that you are here in this thread participating (and therefore MICROSOFT is here, participating) means a lot, and I for one am very grateful. So, THANK YOU! Glen5.4KViews1like0CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_Christensen you have unmasked yourself! Haha! Now you will never be left alone!!! Well since you're here let me re-iterate, speaking officially only for myself, but I hope for many here, that despite the bumps over changes, I am grateful for your help and patience in this thread, and for all you and Microsoft are doing to make the IT world a better place for all of us. You and your team deserve a big thank you, and you certainly have that from me! So THANK YOU! AdamB2395 You are very welcome. I hope I could help in some small way. I hope your future plans work out well and - who knows - as Elden states, Microsoft is listening, so it will be interesting to see what the future brings as well! Best regards to you both, Glen5.2KViews1like0CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Hi Adam - Yes, right after I hit "Post" I saw your edit - all good, of course, I think everyone here, including both Microsoft and myself, just wants to make sure everyone is taken care of as best we can. To your follow up question: Forgive me if you know all this already, but, for context: Licensing requirements and Activation requirements are not exactly the same thing. Activation is a technical process. If you are doing machine level replication using HyperV or XCPNG, it is likely (depending on how you do it and how your hypervisor works) that replication will preserve the activation status of the source host, so that the destination host will already be activated if and when you fire it up. It is also possible that activation status will be lost, in which case the host will attempt to re-activate when it's fired up - and that will happen automatically if an Internet connection exists. In either case you should generally not have to do anything like applying a new product key to the target server regardless of hypervisor. It should all "just work". In contrast, licensing is a legal process. You have to have paid for, and own, in some legal way, enough Windows Server/CPU licenses to make all of your machines legal. I suppose that in your case, where you are only running two live machines, and the replication targets are never running and never used and just sitting there waiting for a disaster that we hope never happens - in that case you might not need a second license for those machines since you're not "using" them (as quoted from the document) - but again I am not a lawyer and cannot answer that authoritatively. But I guess my point was that whether you need a second license or not is not related to the choice of HyperV Server vs any of the other hypervisor options mentioned in the thread, so the loss of HyperV Server won't change your operating costs in any way. Regardless of how many legal licenses you actually need, that number remains the same whether you're on HyperV or ESX or whatever. (The only exception to that of course would be if you upgraded to Datacenter for the physical boxes, in which case you wouldn't need anything else beyond that... other than CALs or whatever, of course.) In any event, to answer your question, no, whether HyperV, or Datacenter, or XCPNG, you should not need to change anything or do anything if disaster strikes: your backup machines, when brought online, will either already be activated, or will attempt to self-activate online, and either way it should be transparent. Only if your product keys run out of activations will you get a warning; in which case you just call Microsoft's licensing center humans and explain it to them, and they'll fix it for you... often while you wait. I hope this is helpful! Glen5.2KViews0likes5CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
AdamB2395 According to his profile, ChrisAtMaf is not a Microsoft Employee (and neither am I) so directing your unhappiness to them is unlikely to directly reach Microsoft. This thread is pretty much dead, but in an effort to help you out, let me try to summarize what we've learned from Microsoft to date: 1. Hyper-V Server 2019 is still a thing, you can still get it, download it, and use it. It will be supported for at least 5 years from inception, so at least another year, and even after that it can still be used. 2. Hyper-V Server 2022 is *not* a thing, it's not coming out, it's not going to exist. Microsoft has made the decision, and made formal announcements, including one from a Microsoft employee Elden_Christensen in this very thread. That product is gone. Everyone in this thread and elsewhere has given feedback to Microsoft about this, but this is a decision made, and it's not going to change. 3. Microsoft has introduced Azure Stack HCI (Hyper Converged Infrsatructure - see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/products/azure-stack/hci/ for details) as a replacement for Hyper-V Server. It is not free. It is however relatively inexpensive, at $10 per physical core per month. It has numerous advantages and is a significant improvement over Hyper-V server, all of which are outlined on the above-linked website. 4. If you do not wish to use, or cannot afford to use, ASHCI, you have alternatives: * You can buy a perpetual Windows Datacenter Server 2022 (or whatever it becomes) license for each physical box, and run all your virtual machines on there - including as many instances of Windows Server as will fit - all covered under just that one license. Expensive, yes, but you own it outright and, with proper planning, it will be a very good future setup for you. -or- * You can just continue to use Hyper-V Server 2019 - it's not going to die in the future, it just won't be officially supported anymore after 2023. -or- * You can use a different Hypervisor. One such is called XCP-NG ( see https://xcp-ng.org/ ). It is free. It is Linux-based. It has a free GUI called XO (Xen Orchestra, see https://xen-orchestra.com/ ). It has community support. And it very nicely runs Linux servers and Windows servers alongside each other as virtual hosts. I personally have been using Hyper-V Server 2019 and loving it. I've also used, and am running some XCP-NG servers. They're also quite nice. I have a pair of Windows Servers (one domain controller and one exchange server) running virtualized on an XCP-NG host, and everything works, and works perfectly, just as you'd expect. I am not a lawyer, but as I review Microsoft's Licensing Guide here: https://download.microsoft.com/download/E/6/4/E64F72BF-55E9-4D85-9EFE-39605D7CE272/WindowsServer2016-Licensing-Guide.pdf it seems pretty clear to me that "Windows Server Standard edition provides rights to use two Operating System Environments (OSEs) or Hyper-V containers." The way I read that is: If your physical machine is running Windows Server Standard Edition, you can run one additional Virtual Standard host. Or, if your physical machine is NOT running Windows Server Standard Edition, you can use your once license to run two virtualized servers. Of particular note, Hyper-V Server 2019 is not "special" in any way. It does not grant or confer any special license or usage rights. It's a free product, and is just a hypervisor. So it seems to me that your existing setup (two physical hosts, each running Hyper-V Server on the metal, and then two Windows Standard virtual servers on each Hyper-V server) *already* requires a total of two actual licenses. One license is consumed by the two servers on your primary box, and another license would be required by the two servers on your secondary box. Others may correct me, but it seems to me that the fact that your secondary box is some kind of standby/backup machine isn't relevant from a licensing perspective: You would still need a total of two licenses, each allowing you to run two instances as virtual machines, for a total of four virtual machines. If in your proposed future scenario you used Windows Datacenter 202X on the physical boxes, you could run anything you want virtualized, without limit. If you use anything else - an old copy of Hyper-V Server 2019, or XCP-NG, or Azure Stack HCI - you would still need one Windows Standard server license for each pair of virtual machine images (so a total of two licenses for your four images) - and you would not need anything additional to run any number of Linux or any other free OSes on those hosts at the same time. So all of that to say that, as far as I can tell from the licensing docs, your current situation would not be changed one bit in the future: To run a total of four Windows Standard 202X boxes plus any number of Linux hosts you would need a total of two Windows Standard 202X licenses, plus some kind of hypervisor host to run on. In other words, the demise of Hyper-V 2019 doesn't change your situation at all. Again others here who haven't muted this old thread may provide correction or more insight, but that's how it appears from where I sit, and from the references I've cited above. For myself, I'm just waiting to buy a new physical box, and then I'm going to go with Azure Stack HCI. That's just me - I'm a Microsoft supporter, and prefer to trust their lead on technology development. I'll still keep an eye on other options (who wouldn't) but I find the new offering compelling (even if not free) and worth checking out. I hope this information is helpful. Glen5.1KViews0likes11CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_Christensen I'll risk a final bit of noise to say Thank You for making this clear. We're all doing the best we can - we just need to know, clearly, what the situation is. And now we do. Thank you for that. Thank you also for answering all the other questions. For myself, I'll be looking at Server 2022, and ASHCI, and watching with great interest as Microsoft rolls out new products and features.13KViews2likes4CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
We seem to be flailing around rather wildly on this thread, especially with all of the traffic today. Correct me if I'm wrong, but when I try to distill the thread down to its core components, what I basically see is: 1. Someone asked about whether a free Hyper-V Standalone 2022 server would be a thing. 2. The only Microsoft person in the thread, Elden_Christensen , pointed the OP at Azure Stack HCI as the answer to that question, which implies that ASHCI is replacing Hyper-V Standalone. 3. Lots of people - myself included - posted reasons we didn't like that. 4. Microsoft (Elden) basically said, "If ASHCI doesn't work for you, we'd like feedback on how to make it better." 5. Lots of people replied, but our replies have boiled down to, "ASHCI doesn't work for us because it isn't free!" 6. Microsoft hasn't responded to that. In my opinion, that is because they've already chosen how to proceed, and are trying to get us to move there as well. In this thread here has been lots of discussion about aspects of hypervisors, and reasons we all need or want the legacy Hyper-V Standalone product, but what it seems to boil down to is this: The reason we all like Hyper-V Standalone is because it is free. Period. The reason Microsoft is moving to ASHCI is because Hyper-V Standalone was free. Period. I do not work for Microsoft, but if you look back on Microsoft's responses in this thread, they have done everything by way of explaining aspects of ASHCI, pointing people to resources about ASHCI, and answering questions about it. But at no time has Microsoft said, or implied that, as a result of this thread, they're going to "bring back" (or "bring forward"), Hyper-V Standalone server. To me, at least, that says that they're not going to. It's dead. Period. As an aside, I was intrigued by the reference to the Partner Program in this thread. I'm sure many of us in this thread are members of that program too, just as we are users of Hyper-V. I hadn't yet heard about the changes to the program, but it turns out that Microsoft is massively reworking it. The end result of that rework is that far fewer companies will be able to qualify to be what they are now calling "Solutions Partners" - and it will be far more difficult to keep that qualification. In essence, right now there are hundreds of thousands of "Microsoft Partners" who - like me - qualify simply because it was easy to do so. We could sell stuff, or we could certify. We didn't have to do all of it. Under the new program, we have to do a lot, and a lot more than we used to. So, like most of those smaller partners, I'm going to lose my status when the new program takes effect. Why, you might ask, is Microsoft doing this? Only they can answer, but I think part of the reason is that the current partner program is watered-down: Microsoft spends a lot of time/money/energy on hundreds of thousands of little partners that do not make Microsoft any real money. So, Microsoft has chosen to change things: Now, there will be far fewer qualified partners, but they will get better attention and better benefits. To me, the same holds true for Hyper-V server. Tons of people use it. Using it, they have expectations surrounding it. Meeting those expectations costs Microsoft money. But the reality here is: It is not *making* any money. We can all say things like, "Oh, well, Hyper-V led me to Microsoft, and led my customers there as well!" but I suspect that all of the "us"'es together with our customers still don't cost-justify Microsoft releasing and having to deal with a Hyper-V Standalone server going forward. Microsoft and other companies change things all the time - heck, I'm still grumpy that Samsung dropped MicroSD card support from their Galaxy S line! It makes no sense to me: They *make* microSD cards! But it clearly makes sense to them, and no amount of complaining is going to change it. So, what's my point? My point is: Microsoft is trying to answer the questions here, but if you read back through the thread (although some posts have been clearly moderated away), it is clear that Microsoft has killed Hyper-V Standalone server. They'll listen to feedback, improve ASHCI where they can, and do their best, but they've decided that Hyper-V Standalone isn't cost-justified, and I can't say that I blame them. But whether I can or not, Hyper-V Standalone is not coming back, any more than Gold Partnership is coming back. It's dead. It's done. If I had one complaint, or suggestion, for you Elden_Christensen and Microsoft, it would be this: Just say that. Clearly. Here. On this thread. Tell us: "Hyper-V Standalone is gone, and it's not coming back." I can't speak for Microsoft, and I know people here won't like it, but we're flailing around because some of us think we can somehow "convince" Microsoft to give us our free product back again. But I'm guessing that's not going to happen, is it? Some confirmation would be helpful in bringing us closure. As for "What to do now," to me it's pretty simple: For myself, I will use Hyper-V under Windows 11 to run my Windows (and other) servers in my own home and labs, just as I do now. Windows 11 is not free, but it's pretty cheap, and it's a buy-one-and-done, and I can run Windows servers under Hyper-V under Windows 11. What's retail for that? $250? Most of us get it for free on our existing computers. It was fun having an actual "server" with servers on it - I enjoyed Hyper-V Standalone too - but those days are gone. If I still want an actual headless server instead of a server running Windows 11 as the host, I could always go to what I use at my dayjob: XCP-NG works really well, Windows servers run happily on it, and you can migrate and do all the other stuff you're used to doing on Hyper-V Standalone. And XCP-NG and it's control plane "Xen Orchestra" are all free and open-source, forever. The older I get the harder it is to change... but the older I get the harder it is to get upset about change. None of us in this thread like it, but Microsoft is doing what they perceive to be best for Microsoft and their shareholders (of which, I'd guess, most of us are also one!). They're not a monument to justice. They're a corporation. They will survive, and we will survive, and even though things are bumpy I hope they will get better. Meanwhile all we can do is make our own business decisions. For me and my team, despite Hyper-V Standalone going away, despite the Partner Program going away (or going much farther out of reach), we've determined that we're going to roll with it, and do the best we can with the cards we're dealt. Which, really, is all any of us can do. By all means - if I'm wrong, I hope Microsoft will correct me here. I hope they'll bring forward Hyper-V Standalone. I hope they'll keep letting me be a Partner. But I'm not basing my actions on it, because Microsoft is big, and we are (comparatively) small, and that's just the way it is. Good luck to us all as things move forward. Consider Win11 Hyper-V if you can, or XCP-NG if you can't.14KViews3likes44CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_ChristensenI'd like to add my voice to this thread, and make clear that the precise problem here - for me at least, and likely for most here - is not necessarily a change in product; rather, the problem is the change in pricing. Microsoft gives away many things for free (email, resources, Azure free-tier products, etc.) and does so for specific purposes: namely, to attract users to the brand and the platform, in the hope that this boosts revenue in the long term. It's a good strategy; and by removing HyperV Server from its free offerings, Microsoft is potentially losing a lot of "advertising opportunities" of this type in the future. Most of the people in this thread seem to be people who work at or for big data centers, and provide services to small/medium business clients. For them, the loss of a free HyperV server has directly geometric revenue effects, but, I'd guess that, at the end of the day, Microsoft believes that these large datacenter people can afford to pay, and Microsoft therefore is choosing to stop offering a free HyperV server because Microsoft doesn't think it's really necessary. If these companies, Microsoft might reason, want to stay on HyperV, they'll move to the Azure product and pay the fee and get used to it. That may be true in some cases, although certainly not all. Now consider the opposite situation. I am an IT Director overseeing a very small team of a very few people running our own datacenter pair... so I myself am an SMB. However... I have five *very large* clients. Let's assume for the sake of discussion that these are huge clients, globally known, who pay my company to operate their IT infrastructure for them, simply because, by virtue of their own structures, it makes more sense for them to outsource such things than to operate them in-house. In at least one case, they have no house. My point is, I may be the opposite of what others in this thread might be. I "grew up" on Linux - I started with SCO Xenix (flashbacks anyone?) back when the i286 was a thing, and moved forward through time to OpenSuse. When virtualization became a thing, I was on XenLite, and it was... okay... but as we all know it's never been great. I've always run Windows on my PC, and loved it, but, like many, I wasn't really focused on understanding everything Windows can do.... I was busy running servers, and there were just not enough hours in the day. Two years ago I purchased a new server for my test lab, and found that it was "designed for Windows". I was able of course to load OpenSuse on it, and "knew" that I would never actually load a Windows Server on it, because I don't have $10K for a Datacenter license just lying around. But I also still felt that "XenLite" wasn't really "good enough"... and I wanted to move to something more powerful. I started sniffing around at XCP-NG, and even had deployed a few Windows Server trial instances on it, when I accidentally discovered Windows HyperV Server 2019. For the Jeff Foxworthy fans among us, "If a VERSION of WINDOWS SERVER CHANGED... YOUR... LIFE... you might be a redneck..." I loaded HyperV Server 2019 on my test lab machine... and never looked back. HyperV Server led me to play with Windows Servers, in a real way, for the first time - to load, yes, Linux servers as guests, but also to spend tons of time with Windows servers that I'd never otherwise have spent. HyperV Server led me to participate more closely with Microsoft products, opportunities, and services. It led me to Azure, and to learn about and become comfortable with Hybrid setups, all the various cloud services there, and more. Most of all: It led me to a place where I was ready to start recommending Windows servers and services to my clients: Linux users who, initially, would have wanted to be on HyperV Server as the hypervisor, but, soon thereafter, would have moved to paid deployments of Windows Server, with its many features and offerings, and, thereafter, I'm sure, to Azure... if I could only have provided them with a reliable pathway so to do... that was within my non-existent SMB budget... and covered by Microsoft's active participation and support. In other words, there could have been a butterfly effect here. The others in this thread have made clear that they could have continued to grow their client bases (and therefore Microsoft's revenue) more freely with a HyperV Server 2022 (and beyond!) deployment. In my case, the butterfly effect could have been much more pronounced: just my own little ability to recommend and influence direction for my few large clients might well have caused a huge shift for them and others to Azure (by way of HyperV 2022, 2025, and *then* Hybrid when the time was right), which could have resulted not only in revenue but also (for the sake of discussion) enhanced visibility for Microsoft. In other words, continuing to offer HyperV Server 202X could have brought lots of continuing benefit to Microsoft; similarly, this small decision Microsoft seems to have made will bring Microsoft no benefit (at least not that we can discern), and could harm it in terms of significant opportunity costs. The absence of a HyperV Server 202X, means that that "stepping stone" (or, in my case, "gateway drug" 🙂 is now gone. Now the distance to Windows Server, Hybrid, and Azure, is much farther away. Now I'm forced to recommend alternatives, which for me means XCP-NG and XOA because, next to HyperV 2019, that's the best thing out there that fits the profile we're all looking for. And when you run a Hypervisor based on (*cough*) Linux, there's really no "draw" to Windows or Microsoft from that direction. I cannot describe my joy when, at last, I was able to seamlessly integrate my HyperV server, with its running guests, with my Windows 10 ProW PC, and Windows Admin Center, and HyperV Manager, and have everything... just... work. It was one of the coolest, most reassuring experiences I've had in a long time. Likewise, I cannot describe my sadness at learning that HyperV 202X may not ever be a thing. I cannot imagine that it's *difficult* for Microsoft to maintain such a product, it's just Windows Core with some (or many) things limited. I imagine that maintaining that "version" of Windows Server 202X as jut one additional SKU is comparatively easy. Certainly easier, I'd say, than maintaining Outlook.com.... or Skype.... or Azure free tier... and so on and so on. And just as Microsoft gets significant indirect benefit from those things (I for example use Enterprise E5 now, and my gateway to that was Outlook.com, followed by Exchange Server, running on... yup.... HyperV Server), I think it's clear that Microsoft is getting significant indirect benefit from HyperV Server 2019, and that such benefits would continue and even increase with HyperV Server 202X. I respectfully suggest that it is to Microsoft's benefit to continue to offer that product, and I request - if you have not done so already - that you share these comments and others in this thread with the (other) decision makers out there. We clearly all think that this should be a thing, and now is the time to make that happen. Thanks for reading, Glen6.1KViews2likes0Comments
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