@Elden Christensen
I understand that I am coming to this discussion late, but I think it's useful to add another voice to the concern here.
There is ONE very clear thing that AzS HCI does NOT offer or provide that Hyper-V Server does/did provide:
A FREE bare-metal hypervisor.
Microsoft's decision to provide a Hyper-V Server product for free was a GREAT decision and was a great choice for any org running mixed-platform guests that include Windows, especially when running Windows Server guests. VMWare, Oracle, Linux Foundation, FreeBSD, Citrix, and more, provide FREE bare-metal hypervisor solutions, each with different appeals. Whomever decided that Hyper-V Server should no longer exist, or at least, that Microsoft should not continue offering a free bare-metal hypervisor, is out of touch with the vast majority of administrators, corporations, etc, and their IT infrastructure needs, as well as being out of touch with the global landscape of IT infrastructure. Replacing Hyper-V Server with AzS HCI is NOT going to push ANYONE toward adopting Azure over their current cloud infrastructure, and putting it behind a paywall is only further discouraging. Despite the delusions of your Azure team, MANY corporations, organizations, and others have a NEED, not just a want, for on-premises virtualization. There is also a substantial market share that does not and would not benefit from moving infrastructure to the cloud. Frankly, anyone working on or running the Azure or Windows Server programs at Microsoft who is unaware or doesn't understand this, is ignorant. That's putting it politely. I'm curious what the profit projections were/are for AzS HCI. Microsoft's business models with Windows Server and Azure surely aren't expecting quantifiable increases in profits with AzS HCI.
To put it into a better perspective, this is similar to making a decision to turn Edge into a "hybrid browser" "built for Azure" and charging a monthly fee for all Edge customers. And honestly, after abandoning the original Edge engine and replacing it with Chromium, made Edge irrelevant. Just another Chromium-based browser. Sure, it's included with Windows. As a long-time IT and Information Security professional with a wide range of experience, from home lab to casinos to global corporations, I would bet that a vast majority of Edge's userbase is convenience, not choice. It browses the web and doesn't require an additional installation. Similarly, I'd place the same wager on Bing's userbase. Edge users who don't feel like changing the default search engine.
Windows Server and (unfortunately) Azure are not going anywhere. That's a given. But while I'm sure there are some Hyper-V Server administrators who were/are excited to move their infrastructure from Hyper-V Server to AzS HCI, my guess is that they are a small minority. I'm not suggesting that AzS HCI doesn't serve a purpose and won't sell; I'm sure there's a customer base for it. But I doubt you received many AzS HCI customers who use or used Hyper-V Server and opted to move to AzS HCI for the sole purpose of Hyper-V Server progression. I've never met an administrator who loves Hyper-V Server enough to pay a subscription for it. Sure, it's a convenient solution and a logical one for admins planning to run a virtualized Windows Server cluster. I see there being a VERY SMALL (less than 5%) amount of AzS HCI subscriptions being customers moving from other hypervisor hosts to AzS HCI. I would imagine a good amount of its customers being ones who previously used Windows Server Standard or Datacenter Core with Hyper-V as the virtualization host, followed by customers running Hyper-V Server with existing hybrid infrastructure (with Azure) that sees a benefit to replacing Hyper-V Server with the new hybrid solution.
I may not be explaining this part properly, but hopefully you understand the message I'm trying to convey.
Charge a fee for the Azure integrations. That makes sense. Deprecating an entire product line to replace it with a forced hybrid product, doesn't.
I know that my opinions expressed here aren't going to influence any decisions or changes, but I think I speak for a much larger percentage of the market share than you might think. Its just that there's only a small percentage of administrators who would bother to take the time to share a detailed opinion on the topic. Most will make their decisions and act on them without sharing their opinion. I can be hopeful though, right? At least there's plenty of time to look for an alternate solution. Customers, especially administrators responsible for large infrastructures, don't like replacing core solutions, especially when its caused by a company's decision to deprecate a product line, and a virtualization host is a critical part of infrastructure that requires a not-insignificant dedication of time and resources to migrate.
Michael
