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bmartindcs
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Joined Oct 08, 2018
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Re: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_ChristensenI just saw the https://youtu.be/yxlAfS9mh2E?si=M5OJuYcf4eDFwIl3, and the Low Cost wording really had my attention. I was so excited, thinking MS listened to all of us MSP's about how abandoning Hyper-V server left SMB in the lurch. Then I watched the video... it looked perfect, like an introduction/entry-level Stack HCL, with budget server gear. Only to flip over to the Product Page and discover this isn't any change or new SKU at all. The licensing is still the same $10/core. Who can afford to pay for Stack, but then uses cheap hardware? 🤔 Announcement: 'Good news - Stack now runs on budget hardware!' Translation: 'After buying Stack licenses, budget hardware is all you'll be able to afford!' 🙃 I kid I kid. Jokes aside, the reality is that price model absolutely does not work for SMB. There is no chance our clients in the SMB space will pay hundreds of dollars a month just for the OS platform - let alone the OS/CAL's too. I can see it being of value in a min-datacenter at a corp HQ, but not for SMB. We MSP's control our client's hardware/infra to a pretty significant level. We don't want to go back to bare metal with HV role. There are numerous advantages to having a thin hypervisor OS with all the servers being VM's. Your retreat from SMB and VMware jumping the shark has led to ancillary software vendors taking notice and embrace XCP-NG and Proxmox. Veeam is one example and now has full support. This pushes us in those directions - away from MS. We don't want to do this and I don't understand why MS wants us to. Why not make it easy for SMB and maintain vendor-lock-in? A free "light tier" is warranted and solves everything. Make it limited to 3 hosts restricted at the Azure Tenant level or something. Doing this does not cannibalize any Stack sales in this scenario, as anyone interested in this would never have paid for Stack - they would use a different platform (which is our current plan for all clients). This gets everyone into the Stack/Azure ecosystem as well as achieve vendor-lock-in. As they grow they logically move right into "Full Stack" via Key change, and/or Azure itself. This also would solve all the home-lab folks wanting to learn/tinker and help us all eat our own dogfood doing so. You don't need to abandon the SMB space, so please don't. I will give you exactly 3 goats for making this a reality. Can't resist that kind of logic, and carrot, right?171Views2likes4CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Yes, we can "just deploy Server Core". Not looking for free licensing necessarily, everyone is licensed. As I stated, using Core is not the same though as it has additional features and roles in full Server OS (even in Core) vs HVS. As I also stated, we can probably through a combination of a bunch of GPO and local sec policy, restrict those roles/features but that seems to be cobbling together a way to get small attack surface like HVS had. My idea/solution was just an option like Core is during installation, for "HyperVisor" only, in that it strips all that out for us out of the box - eliminating the need to make it entirely custom to get that small attack surface that HVS had.1.8KViews1like2CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Karl-WE We virtualize all client servers as we onboard them. The reason being for portability ease when changing hardware, for ease of backups/restores, and for ease of DR. We keep loaner servers that we can spit a restored VM onto and have clients up in no time in the event of a significant DR situation. We could run the VM's on a Pro machine. I am aware we can use GPO's etc to harden it, but it's overall just a stupid step backwards. MS goal is to push us all to Stack or Azure. MS has not considered the fact that the former is not an option for most of the SMB space, and the later is cost prohibited for many and also not practical for others if you have any kind of data/throughput/latency heavy LOB app. That seems to imply that MS position is that if Azure or Stack are not a fit, then you should run bare metal and/or buy Server all over again just to run the hypervisor - all of which is a step backwards. They could have converted HV Server into Server Core with HV as a Role, without licensing required, and they can block the other features from being installed to avoid gaming the system. That would collapse the sku chain from a code standpoint. Just seems to be another poke in the eye. I'm still bitter about NCE, so this is another fun change.1.8KViews1like5CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
GlenB You're hung up on thinking I am bitching it isn't free anymore. That isn't the core problem (unless compared to Stack as being the replacement, more on that later). I am not a home user, or home labber. I run an MSP and serve clients in the SMB space. Standard practice is everyone is a VM for portability and ease of recovery/migration and currently we use HV Server as said hypervisor. The new options don't meet the needs of the SMB markets we service - it's a step backwards to run full Windows server, just to get the hypervisor and just feels like a Lab vs production environment. SO, the only other alternative per MS is to use Stack. That is out of the question for SMB due to costs, special hardware requirements, and cluster size minimums - all are not realistic for SMB. These users all own licenses of Windows Server, SQL etc; it's the architecture of the network that I have beef with in increasing the attack surface and complexity and arguably license costs to do "the new way". These are not users looking to get something for nothing, they pay for Windows - it's just the new way is either a step backwards or a giant cost increase. There are other reasons I don't like it, like for getting newbies into the system to learn etc (assuming stack is the other option), but I'll leave the "not listening" topic where it lies and that we disagree there. I just can't help but think some kind of "Stack Light" would be the path forward that addresses the needs of SMB as outlined, and still funnels everyone in the direction MS obviously wants everyone to go and eliminates this "putting dev into HV Server" problem being cited as a reason in killing HV Server since people would be using Stack. The upside too would be that people are already then using the "new" platform - making the knowledge base current and upgrade path to Stack "full/premium" or straight up Azure an easy option.4.2KViews2likes11CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Elden_Christensen I wrote a long reply, then deleted it before hitting send because it occurred to me that MS does not seem to actually care about what we think, need, or see in our clients (MSP in SMB space) needs. Just built our first XCP-NG and Proxmox clusters since this announcement. I'd prefer HV but you're forcing our hand and Stack is just out of the question expensive, and running full OS on bare metal with HV role is not wise for a number of reasons. Still feel like a "Stack Light" offering was a missed opportunity for SMB - it basically addresses all issues/concerns and gets people into the new ecosystem which is the entire point of this it seems. I want to love MS as I have since the 90's, but this change, the partner program changes, and NCE are really bumming me out.4.2KViews2likes18CommentsPartner Access to a Client's Admin Portal -> Disabling Multi-Factor Authentication
We're a MSP and have been granted delegated access to our client's O365 tenant as their "partner of record". When accessing their admin center, using our own partner O365 credentials, everything works fine EXCEPT the option to manage MFA (the link in the Active User List at the bottom) is missing. If I login with an admin account that is part of their O365 Tenant, I can see the MFA link fine. It's only when using any of our accounts that are part of our company (which is their partner of record), is MFA is missing. Everything else works fine. Managing MFA is a pretty common support request. I'm trying to keep accountability for my support engineers by us using our own accounts vs us all logging in with their admin account (in which case there is no accountability). Is this by design or am I missing something?Re: Hyper-V Server 2022
Your response is exactly why MS is making this move. Move on and prove them wrong. We already are across our entire install base. We're moving to XCP-NG. The discussion is over, it's happening. It is a bad move in many opinions but we don't make the decisions. Move on4.7KViews0likes3CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
DavidYorkshire DavidYorkshire wrote: synergyusallc I expect everyone reading this is aware of that - the issue is licensing: if you are running Linux workloads or using it as a test server with trial licenses, or as a VDI host running client OSs, you don't need any Windows Server licenses with Hyper-V Server whereas you do with Standard / Datacentre, in all cases. Did you mistype? Are you saying if I have a Server 20xx server running Hyper-V role, and then I create a Linux VM under it, that we have to pay for some kind of licensing for it? I don't believe you are correct here, citation? What SKU is that to run a Linux VM on a HV Role'd Server?4.7KViews0likes11CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
GlenBarney1 Didn't see any impact from all our use-cases for various things needed or issues with the plan with HCL - at all. Bummer, 2022 looks like the year of "pound-sand/kick-rocks" from MS on pretty much every front it appears. So long and thanks for all the fish13KViews1like3CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
imschmidt You read his reply different than I did. I took it as there will be a 1 node ability with HCL, but that's it. That frankly does nothing to address the bulk of the issues most folks have posed. Certified hardware is a problem and eliminates all lab setups or using existing hardware. Then there is the cost issue as well; which may or may not be solved by insider program, but either way this combined with all the changes to Partner Program as well as NCE in CSP program, and well.... the writing is on the wall.5.2KViews1like2CommentsRe: WVD Classic Cleanup
Issue is not resolved. Jensheerin The steps in the article are things I tried with MS support. The challenge is the resource group is already gone. There is no way to reference the pool in question. MS support did not get a solution now that I think about it. The resources were created with my account so the way the other person said it fixed theirs doesn't help me.3.9KViews0likes0CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
itjamie That isn't really fair. Sounds like they are trying to grow the evolution of virtual systems and by extension, revenue. In larger deployments, Stack would be wonderful. In SMB it has no place at all as it exists now. My suggestion is simply to create a free tier of stack that works with a single host. Paywall all the fancy features like clustering, and just let it have feature parity with HVS. That solves all problems and allows for direct upgrade/growth path to Azure for all companies. Not sure why they are not jumping on that, it is win win win.7KViews1like0CommentsRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
Any chance there will be a change on this decision? Keeping HV alive OR making some kind of entry level free tier of Stack with feature parity? If the goal is to drive adoption of Stack, to then drive Azure - You can't do better than this option; prevents you having to manage two code-bases too. You can keep all the cluster stuff and scalable provisioning features features behind the paid sku. Our use case as an MSP for our SMB clients is little single hosts with one/two VM's. This would require allowing a single host install though, as the dual host requirement automatically disqualifies most SMB. We've been seeing a pretty steady adoption growth of Azure among our client bases, and I think over time more of our clients will want to move their VM's into the cloud. I really think that trend will stop once we have to start using other platforms as we will already be divorced from the ecosystem and would just as likely use AWS/Google, or even a flat VM system like Vultr/Digital-Ocean. If our VM's are all in HV, it's super easy to move to Azure and by default probably will move to Azure. We just need to know what we're dealing with so we can work accordingly. If the answer is NO then fine. If it's MAYBE fine, and same with YES WORKING ON IT then that's fine too.6.2KViews0likes1CommentRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
XCP-NG or VMware are your big two choices. There are others such as VirtualBox and KEMU. VMware has free options. XCP-NG is not 'too difficult', you just need to play with it and you'll find your knowledge with hv will translate over. Hyperv is dead, we're moving on to a post-Microsoft Era in the hypervisor arena. They can't articulate what their plans for smb are beyond the original stated Azure Stack - which by extension excludes the entire smb market so, so the sooner you get moving the better.6.5KViews1like1CommentRe: Hyper-V Server 2022
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.9.7KViews2likes0Comments
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