2008R2, Hyper-V and SCVMM in 2003 AD

[nogarap]

I've been tasked with looking at virtualisation in our 2003 AD. I'm keen to use 2008R2, Hyper-V and SCVMM, to keep everything under the MS roof. I don't have control of the whole forest, so my part will remain as 2003 native. I saw a thread by GrimR

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1575372&page=1

asking a similar question, but as I say making forest wide schema changes isn't really going to be an option.
So, my question is can these things, 2008R2, Hyper-V and SCVMM live quite happily in my 2003 environment without losing much of their functionality. The machines I'm looking to virtualise are 2003 release 1.
Many thanks in advance,
Gaz

 

[pagy]

Yes, you could add 2008 r2 servers to your domain as member servers and use Hyper-V on them.. SCVMM will be quite happy as well.

I can't see any reason why they would lose any functionality..

Paul
MCTS: Exchange 2007, Configuration
MCSA:2003
MCSE:2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2795.html

Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week

 

[nogarap]

Cheers Paul. Thanks for the speedy reply. Next thing now is deciding between Hyper-V and VMWare!

 

[pagy]

No problem. The choice between Hyper-V and VMware really depends on your own needs and budget.

Personally I prefer VMware but have used Hyper-V in SMB environments and it works quite well..

Paul
MCTS: Exchange 2007, Configuration
MCSA:2003
MCSE:2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

RFC 2795 - The Infinite Monkey Protocol Suite (IMPS)

http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2795.html

Difficult takes a day, impossible takes a week

 

[kmcferrin]

The company I work for provides both VMware and Hyper-V solutions. Hyper-V is definitely cheaper, in some cases 1/3 the cost off VMware's solution, and it covers probably 90% of the feature set, and certainly the features that most people come to expect from their virtualization solution.

The two places where we see VMware continue to do well are either large companies who made investments in a VMware environment before Hyper-V existed (let alone Hyper-V R2), or people who aren't willing to look at anything other than VMware.

My personal recommendation...start with testing a Hyper-V environment. If it does everything that you need it to, you're set. If not you can always shell out for VMware.

Regardless of which solution you purchase, the following costs will be the same:

Hardware
OS licensing for virtualized systems
Systems Management licensing for virtualized systems

The following costs will vary depending on which solution you choose:

Hypervisor cost
Management solution cost for ESX/Hyper-V hosts

For Hyper-V the Hypervisor is free, and System Center VMM is relatively cheap. For VMware you pay for the Hypervisor, and depending on which SKU you select (which determines the feature set that you get) it can run up to $2500 per CPU. The vCenter (VMware's tool to provide SCVMM-like functionality) costs are comparable to SCVMM.

________________________________________
CompTIA A+, Network+, Server+, Security+
MCTS:Windows 7
MCTS:Hyper-V
MCTS:System Center Virtual Machine Manager
MCSE:Security 2003
MCITP:Enterprise Administrator

 

[nogarap]

Hi kmcferrin,

Thanks for the tips. Still nothing definite here, but speaking to people I'm getting a fond feeling for Hyper-V and SCVMM. Hardware will probably be one of our HP DL360G5 boxes, and MSA50 storage array has been recommended, which will take up to 3TB.