Why is hyper-v better than virtualbox?

Question

We have 4-5 people in a software development environment with access to 4 servers, each with 2 quad-core or dual-core cpu's (core-based, before nehalem), and 8gb or 16gb RAM, so I think we have a good amount of power for virtualization. Total, we have a
team foundation server, oracle server, web server, 2 virtualization servers, and multiple workstations, some virtualized, some not.
When we started virtualizing about a year ago, for whatever reason, and although everyone has an MSDN sub, we started using VirtualBox instead of Hyper-V. I'm no expert (and that's why I'm here) but I think they operate at different levels of interaction
with the hardware, and that VirtualBox is a bad idea for this environment.
Can someone give some good reasons why we should be using Hyper-V? Also is it possible to convert the virtual machines?
And then I would like to know if it's okay to also be virtualizing our web server and oracle server, etc. We have only been virtualizing workstations. I think we really need to make good use of virtualization if we are going to be doing it at all.
Advice welcome also for virtualization best practices, backups, management, infrastructure design, etc. I would like to start with a domain controller, and maybe a Lync server so we can share desktops, etc. Thanks for all input!

Answer 1

In my opinion Hyper-V is only better if your using Hyper-V to host servers, like Microsoft SharePoint, Active Directory, Sql Server, or even MySql to provide resources.
If you intend to be using Virtualizatio to develop software, like Working with SharePoint from a developer standpoint, building asp.net web applications, or even doing C++, desktop applications, or Android, Php etc, if you are going to be physically on the
VM using it as your environment to write code and design, then Oracle VirtualBox is better than Hyper-V.
With hyper-v your limited to using The Connect console, or Remote Desktop Protocol to see the virtual machine.  The RDP console leaves much to be desired.  It only gives you the option to use all of your monitors or one, it won't do 2 if you have
3.  I like to use my third monitor to keep my email open, and pdf documentation, or word documents and use the other two monitors for my VM so I can see multiple code windows in Visual Studio at the same time (VS2010).  Oracle handles multi monitors
so much better.  And if I want to surface an adroid phone through USB to my VM, oracle is the only way to go there, or maybe VMWare, but VirtualBox is free.
However, Hyper-V is now native to Windows 8 desktop version and windows 8 server version.  And most companies dealing with microsoft products use Hyper-V for their VM's, so from a multi developer environment, it makes sense for us to use Hyper-V with
windows 8 because all of our servers run on Hyper-V.  If we need to troubleshoot something we can grab a copy of the latest server VM backup and spin it up locally on Hyper-V with windows 8 without having to do any conversions.
But from a developer standpoint it is really hard for me to leave VirtualBox.  If RDP could work my 2 of my monitors and not all 3 or 4 of them I would have no complaints.  Third part RDP sofware isn't any better, it could never compare to the
deep integration and speed of windows RDP.  My main issue is, if RDP can do all of my monitors why can't it do just 2 of them, seems like a big thing to leave out in my opinion, it's so frustrating.  It's such an awesome part of windows with such
a huge annoying handicap.  I've actually thought about just having another computer for my third monitor, like a tablet or something on a stand.  Sure you can SPAN a monitor in Windows so it acts like one monitor and I can tell RDP to go full screen
but it has a width limit and then I need extra software on the VM to handle the big resolution like 2 screens instead of one.
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