“Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 (HYS) does not contain the full set of features and roles that the full Windows Server 2012 operating system has, however, from a pure Hyper-V perspective, Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 has feature parity with the feature set of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V”. Hyper-V Server does not contain a GUI.
The ONLY Roles available on Hyper-V server 2012 R2:
- File and Storage Services
- File and iSCSI Services
- File Services
- Storage Services
- Hyper-V
- Remote Desktop
Hyper-V Server is a dedicated stand-alone product that contains the hypervisor. Hyper-V Server is ideal where no new Windows Server licenses are required or where the servers being consolidated are running an alternative OS.
You configure Hyper-V Server by using the Server Configuration tool (SCONFIG.CMD). You can use an ordinary command prompt for operations that are not available in the Server Configuration tool. This is the command reference: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc754340.aspx
The TL;DR licence details:
- Hyper-V Server, Standard or Datacenter all support as many as you put on them.
- Standard comes with a license for 2 Windows Server VMs on up to 2 CPUs (on the same motherboard).
- Datacenter comes with a license for as many Windows Server guests as you can run on up to 2 CPUs (in the same motherboard). You buy more CPUs are required
- Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 has no cost for its own license. The guests OSs must still be licensed, exactly as stated in the previous paragraph. The guest licenses are not tied to what hypervisor you actually use.
Hyper-V server 2012 Enhanced Storage Capabilities:
- Virtual Fiber Channel – Enables virtual machines to integrate directly into Fiber Channel SAN (fiber channel-based Hyper-V Guest Clusters)
- Support for 4-KB Disk Sectors in Hyper-V Virtual Disks
- New VHD Format. VHDX
- Offloaded Data Transfer (ODX). Offload storage-related tasks to the SAN, increasing performance.
- Boot from USB Disk.
- Storage Spaces. treat SAS & SATA disks as storage pools, from which logical disks can then be provisioned. Thinly or fully provisioned, and support advanced features such as trim provisioning.
Enhanced Resource Management include:
- Dynamic Memory (great for VDI)
- Resource Metering provides the ability to track and report the amount of data that is transferred per virtual machine
- QoS specifying the minimum bandwidth that is available to a virtual machine or a port.
- Data Center Bridging (DCB) converged networking… Look this one up.
Hyper-V Extensible Switch:
- Private VLANS (PVLANS) - Provide isolation between two virtual machines on the same VLAN
- ARP/ND Poisoning/Spoofing
- DHCP Snooping/DHCP Guard - Protects against rogue DHCP servers
- Virtual Port ACLs - Isolate networks and metering network traffic for a virtual port
- Trunk Mode to Virtual Machines
- Monitoring & Port Mirroring
- Windows PowerShell/Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI)
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012 Clusters:
- Maximum Nodes per Cluster 64
- VMs per Cluster 8,000
- Maximum Guest Cluster Size (iSCSI) 64 Nodes
- Maximum Guest Cluster Size (Fiber) 64 Nodes
- Maximum Guest Cluster Size (File Based) 64 Nodes
- Guest Clustering with Live Migration Yes
- Guest Clustering with Dynamic Memory Yes
Hyper-V Server has the following upper limits on virtual machines:
- Virtual machines with 64 virtual processors
- 1 TB of RAM per virtual machine
- 64 TB virtual hard disks by using the VHDX format.
