What hypervisor do you use for your test environment?

Question

Virtualization

Hello! What hypervisor do you use for the test environment (win-linux) of the machine? Windows host. A lot of virtualbox is used, is it because of old habits or really works well? If you can give a couple of reasons from experience. Thank you for the answers, because the question is specific.

Answer 1

I’ll write my subjective opinion, I myself use Hyper-V on Win10, but I would like VirtualBox, I’ll explain why I use Hyper-V and don’t use VBox:
1. So Hyper-V
+ Native, works as a service, initially all Headless machines (in the context of VBox ). Those. no need to answer a stupid question - what to do with the car when you clap on the cross.
+ Hyper-V switch supports VLAN out of the box - allows using an unlimited number of subnets for lab tests in conjunction with a Mikrotik router - using hardware Mikrotik (useful for streaming traffic to Wireshark for analysis)
+ Allows you to make Base disks (VBox also allows you to , a little trickier but possible), this seriously reduces the deployment time of a new stand.
+ Powershell - again using already written scripts - and basic disks (sealed by sysprep) - quickly deploy the required set of servers without wasting time deploying them. (For VBox - there is also a wrapper written by amateurs, but not so flexible)
+ The ability to control machines through Remote Desktop Connection Manager 2.7 (a little-known topic, but you can set the GUID of the VM - and connect to the host - managing all the added machines on one port - by the way, to form a list of these machines and a conf file for RDCM2.7 can also be PS)
- Inability to connect any external devices, i.e. Forward, for example, a USB modem, hasp keys, scanners and cameras.
- No sound from the car (as a workaround through RDP)
- Not at all suitable for learning networking things, I mean vendors very rarely provide anything for Hyper-V, mostly images for VMWare (Which work in VBox too) - i.e. landmark only Windows + Linux
- Problems with network drivers even for those devices that are supported, for example, virtual Mikrotik - only works with Legacy Network devices. (there can only be 4 in the system)
2. Now using VirtualBox
+ Ability to forward almost any USB device
+ Support for VMWare disks and images (the choice of those who work with ciscos, hardware load balancers etc.)
+ Multiplatform
+ Free (did not delve into the license , but nothing seems to be terrible)
+ There is a web muzzle in php from third-party developers
+ VRDP - i.e. you can connect to the machine via MSTSC directly to the host
- VRDP - it is impossible to connect to 1 port, i.e. each machine occupies a separate port, and already on the firewall you need to open a bunch of ports, always remember which machine is running on which port. Not very convenient.
- Headless mode is supported, but not at all as we would like. Those. there are two modes of starting the machine - either in a window or in headless (detachable) mode. I wanted to cheat - I kept a regular car, launched it in a detachable - I caught a blue screen. Those. the feature has a status - testing (though quite a long time, as I understand it) - when it will work normally out of the box - it's not clear yet.
Well, actually the conclusion: there is nothing ideal, I would prefer the Virtualbbox + HyperV symbiosis - but I don’t know such a product. For myself, for the time being, I have not found a better environment than Hyper-V for tests. The choice, as always, is yours.

Answer 2

Isn't it all the same? There is no particular difference.

Answer 3

I'll add 5 cents too. ESXI in production, gentoo linux, freebsd, win 2003, 2008 guests

Answer 4

Hyper-V Works out of the box. As for usb, the rumors are greatly exaggerated, the forwarding works after some gestures.
As a last resort, nested virtualization remains. For example, I have now assembled a stand with MacOS.
In general, if you do not need a designer, then it is better to use Hyper-V