Hyper-V = datacenter virtualization ("equivalent" to Vmware ESXi) VB, VM Workstation = desktop virtualization Not that difficult to understand sebus
If you don't know or understand the difference between Virtualization software and a Hypervisor, you'd probably be better off sticking to virtualization.
With the Hyper-V in Windows 8 can you both run server and client OS. It just appears as VMware. Once I installed Windows 8 RTM from MSDN will I go use Hyper-V myself and quit with VMware. The biggest reason is that the leaked Windows Phone 8 SDK emulator required Hyper-V to run the ROM. Also do I think the performance of Hyper-V will be better seeing it's integrated within the OS what VMware isn't.
@akf This is an over simplified explaination, but it should help you understand the differeneces. With this type of virtualisation (Type1 Hypervisor) the part that does the work (The Hypervisor) is installed on to the actual Hardware of the system: - Hardware - Type1 Hypervisor (Hypervisor) - Guest OS All the OSes including the Host are actually VM's and have access directly to the Hardware through the Hypervisor, which treats all VM's equally. With this type of virtualisation (Type2 Software) the part that does the work (The Software) is installed on top of the Host Operating System: - Hardware - Host OS - Type2 Hypervisor (Virtualisation Software) - Guest OS Which means all the hardware access by the VM's have to emulated by the Host OS, which uses alot of resources and gets worse with each extra VM. A few of the main Pros/Cons are: You have direct access to your real hardware and not what the software emulates for you. Better use of your resources no extra OS running using up HDD space or RAM. All OSes run on an equal level only using up resources when they are needed. Virtualisation Software is fine for this type of testing. If you were running multiple VM at the same time or if you were going to SysPrep the installed OS and use the resulting VHD as a VM or Boot Drive, Hyper-V would be better solution. Hyper-V was only in Server OSes at first and most of them had Virtualisation rights in the EULA so it can appear to be server specific. But you can use any OS type MS, Linux, Client or Server.
That is really "odd" statement. If you have plenty of RAM (not unusual to have 32Gb in desktop machine nowdays) & CPU grunt (dual quad core processors) & fast SSD drive you can run x number of VMs & EACH one behaves exactly this same performance-wise sebus
We live in different worlds dude. I don't think i've ever worked on a PC with more than 8GB RAM. The only Quad core I've worked on is my own, and we're only just starting to see SSD's appearing in new laptops.
Thanks, Niekess and ZaForD for your explanation. By now, it will be much easier to understand the Wikipedia articles about virtualization. @sebus No offense intended, but it seems that you have a slightly different opinion here. Well, could you provide a brief explanation about your opinion, especially about your disagreement about the performance of Hyper-V, as compared to VMware? I do not mind knowing the different perspectives in this thread.
Hyper-V for Datacenter is perfectly fine. I would not use it on Desktop, as Workstation does perfect job (inc running Mac OS X) Not an opinion, just the right tool for the right job sebus
Except that, starting with Windows 8, the same enterprise-class virtualization is now a desktop feature - at least if you have a relatively modern desktop CPU. While, in terms of the (Windows) desktop OS feature set, Windows Virtual PC, and, prior to that, Microsoft Virtual PC, is the immediate ancestor of Hyper-V, they actually have little in common. Hyper-V (regardless of what version of Windows is using it) is a lot more crash-resistant than any other virtualization solution I've used - period. When I booted back into my Server 2012 drive after nearly a week away from it, I found (much to my acute embarrassment) that I had left my Windows 8 Pro VM running when I had shut down the server. In any other case, the VM would have been left quite unusable - not merely unstable; however, a mere shutdown/warm-restart of the VM in question had things to rights again.
And therein lies the difference, sebus. Right now, OS X virtualization is only possible with VMware - not even Parallels has faced that bugbear yet. Hyper-V is not merely more Windows-specific (I know of no host operating systems outside of Windows that support Hyper-V), it's also a lot younger than VMware (hence the rather sizable resistance - aided and abetted by VMware - within the virtualization community to non-VMware solutions). Still, to be honest, that requirement for OS X guest support does make you a bit of an outlier. Also, Hyper-V does not roadblock usage of VMware - in fact, it no more blocks VMware than it does QEMU. Further, there is, in fact, one difference between Hyper-V implementations in general terms; that difference is a requirement (for guest-performance issues) in desktop implementation of Hyper-V (specifically Windows 8) for second-level address translation (SLAT) support in the CPU - server versions of Windows (2003 forward) don't have this requirement. (Support, yes; require, no.) Also, *all* versions of Windows Server since 2003 support Hyper-V as a feature - including new Server 2012 Essentials, the replacement for Windows Home Server and Small Business Server. (While it's been touted in Datacenter Server, it's been present in the other SKUs from the launch of Hyper-V as a feature; my fully-legit copy of Server 2012 Standard, obtained directly from Microsoft via Website Spark, is being used in the Hyper-V server role currently - there is nothing stopping me from using it in other roles in addition to that of Hyper-V server.) Lastly, there is no difference whatever in terms of administration of Hyper-V clients - from desktop to Datacenter/Enterprise. The same tools are used. Therefore, once you have one, you have all. (That alone is, in fact, monstrously different than VMware Workstation, ESXi and vSphere - can you administer all three from a single product? Given Windows 8 Hyper-V-capable desktops, I could, in fact, administer their Hyper-V clients from *this* Server 2012 Hyper-V Server in my Hyper-V Administrator role. No additional software - or overhead - required. For that reason alone, without the need for OS X guest support, Hyper-V has a lot to offer.)