I’ve been playing around with Microsoft Hyper-V Server R2, and I am amazed at how Microsoft can praise their solution as having a single pane of glass, i.e. a single management interface.

After installing a couple of Hyper-V nodes and a physical Windows 2008 R2 x64 machine for AD and SCVMM, I started configuring the environment. I needed a grant total of seven tools to get it up and running:

  • Installation Media (ISO) for both Hyper-V, Windows 2008 R2 and SCVMM R2
  • HVConfig command prompt (possibly through Remote Desktop)
  • iSCSICPL GUI (possibly through Remote Desktop)
  • diskpart (possibly through Remote Desktop)
  • Hyper-V Manager MMC
  • Failover Cluster Manager
  • SCVMM console

When comparing to VMware vSphere:

  • Installation Media (ISO) for ESX, Windows 2008 and vCenter
  • VIClient

Conclusion

So for a Microsoft virtualization platform, I need almost four (!) times more tools and panes of glass to configure even the simplest environment. How dare Microsoft even speak out the words ‘single pane of glass’? I say: myth busted.