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What's New in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012
Published: February 29, 2012
Updated: October 18, 2012
Applies To: Hyper-V Server 2012
This document briefly summarizes new features in Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 and also outlines current virtual machine maximums, configuration, and workgroup considerations.
Hyper-V Server 2012 is a full-featured, enterprise-class, standalone Microsoft hypervisor that provides an optimized virtualization platform requiring fewer updates than a full version of Windows Server, while consuming half the disk footprint of a default installation of Windows Server. It supports the same hardware compatibility list as Windows Server 2012 and integrates fully with Microsoft System Center and Windows technologies such as Windows Update and Active Directory.
This product is a free download and its installation is pre-activated. The operating systems on hosted virtual machines, however, each require their proper license.
Hyper-V Server 2012 supports all of the new features in the Hyper-V server role of Windows Server 2012 and a number of other general Windows Server 2012 features. It continues to support features from Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 such as failover clustering, multipath I/O, server backup, and the ability to install this product on bootable USB flash drives (see Deploying Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 R2 on USB Flash Drive).
In addition to the new functionality summarized in the table below, a slight change makes it easier to manage servers in workgroups:
To manage a server that is not in a domain with Server Manager, add the name of the Hyper-V host computer to the trusted hosts list with the following Windows PowerShell cmdlet:
Set-Item WSMan:\localhost\Client\TrustedHosts -Value <ServerName> -Concatenate
If the client login credentials and server login credentials both use the same username and password, the connection will be seamless. If the credentials are different on the different computers, you can add alternate (matching) credentials with the following command at a command prompt:
Cmdkey.exe /add: <servername> /user: <servername\accountname> /pass
This table summarizes several new features..
| Feature/functionality | New or updated? | Description |
|---|---|---|
|
Support for large-scale virtual machines (virtual CPUs, virtual machine RAM, VHDX) |
New |
Now supports up to these limits:
|
|
Importing of virtual machines |
Updated |
The import process has been updated to help you resolve configuration problems that would otherwise prevent a virtual machine from being imported. |
|
Live migration |
Updated |
It is now possible to perform a live migration in a non-clustered environment. Within a cluster, you can now perform more than one live migration at the same time, and use higher network bandwidths. |
|
Resource metering |
New |
You can now track and gather data about physical processor, memory, storage, and network usage by specific virtual machines. |
|
Storage migration |
New |
Move the virtual hard disks used by a virtual machine to different physical storage while the virtual machine remains running. |
|
Virtual Fibre Channel |
New |
This feature makes it possible to virtualize workloads and application that require direct access to Fibre Channel-based storage. It also makes it possible to configure clustering directly within the guest operating system (sometimes referred to as guest clustering). |
|
Hyper-V Replica |
New |
Sends updates of virtual machine states from a primary server to a Replica server to maintain continuity in the event of planned or unplanned downtime. |
|
Improved support for RemoteFX |
New |
RemoteFX virtualizes 3D graphics hardware. |
|
Support for single-root I/O virtualization (SR-IOV) |
New |
Provides direct networking to guest operating systems for hardware network adapters that support it. |
|
Storage on SMB3 file shares |
New |
This new feature provides a new way to provide virtual machines with shared storage, without use of a storage area network (SAN). |
|
Virtual NUMA |
New |
Newer operating systems and high-performance applications such as SQL Server include optimizations that recognize a computer’s NUMA topology to increase performance by considering NUMA when scheduling threads or allocating memory. The virtual NUMA feature makes it possible for the guest operating system and NUMA-aware applications running in the virtual machine (such as SQL Server) to take advantage of these performance optimizations. |
|
Virtual Switch |
Updated |
Hyper-V Server 2012 has the following upper limits on virtual machines:
-
Virtual machines with up to 64 virtual processors
-
Up to 1 TB of RAM per virtual machine
-
Virtual hard disks up to 64 TB using the new VHDX format
The following table provides additional resources for Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012.
| Content type | References |
|---|---|
|
Community resources |
|
|
Related topics |
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