Hyper-V Comparison – Windows Server 2008 R2 vs Windows Server 2012

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Feature by feature comparisons of Hyper-V in both Windows Server 2008 R2 and 2012

I just went looking for a decent comparison of Hyper-V in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows Server 2012.  I obviously found this excellent document on download.microsoft.com – but couldn’t find these high-level bullets anywhere.

Hence this post:

Processor and Memory Support

Processor/Memory Feature

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

Logical processors on hardware

64

320

Physical memory

1 TB

4 TB

Virtual processors per host

512

2,048

Virtual processors per virtual machine

4

64

Memory per virtual machine

64 GB

1 TB

Active virtual machines

384

1,024

Maximum cluster nodes

16

64

Maximum cluster virtual machines

1,000

8,000

 

Network

Network Feature

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

NIC Teaming

Yes, through partners

Yes, Windows NIC Teaming in box

VLAN Tagging

Yes

Yes

MAC spoofing protection

Yes, with R2 SP1

Yes

ARP spoofing protection

Yes, with R2 SP1

Yes

SR-IOV networking

No

Yes

Network QoS

No

Yes

Network metering

No

Yes

Network monitor modes

No

Yes

IPsec task offload

No

Yes

VM Trunk Mode

No

Yes

 

Storage

Storage Feature

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

Live storage migration

No, quick storage migration through System Center Virtual Machine Manager

Yes, with no limits (as many as the hardware will allow)

Virtual machines on file storage

No

Yes, Server Message Block 3.0 (SMB3)

Guest Fibre Channel

No

Yes

Virtual disk format

VHD up to 2 TB

VHD up to 2 TB

VHDX up to 64 TB

Virtual machine guest clustering

Yes, through iSCSI

Yes, through iSCSI, Fibre Channel, or Fibre Channel over

Ethernet (FCoE)

Native 4 KB disk support

No

Yes

Live virtual hard disk merge

No, offline

Yes

Live new parent

No

Yes

Secure offloaded data transfer

No

Yes

 

Manageability

Manageability Feature

Windows Server 2008 R2

Windows Server 2012

Hyper-V PowerShell

No

Yes

Network PowerShell

No

Yes

Storage PowerShell

No

Yes

REST APIs

No

Yes

SCONFIG

Yes

Yes

Enable/Disable shell

No, server core at operating system setup

Yes

VMConnect support for RemoteFX

No

Yes

Hyper-V is available as both the FREE Hyper-V Server 2012 and as a role in Windows Server 2012.

If you are virtualising Windows Server workloads (and have licensed them correctly), Hyper-V is completely “free” – so save yourself a lot of money by NOT purchasing an additional virtualisation solution.

Dave 

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 01, 2003
    Informative

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2013
    can i downcreat windows server 2008 from 2012

  • Anonymous
    November 12, 2013
    how to create windows server 2012 Active Directory.

  • Anonymous
    November 20, 2013
    simple -->add roles active directory domain services-->and you will be notify that requir dc promo . go from there

  • Anonymous
    November 21, 2013
    The comment has been removed

  • Anonymous
    May 19, 2014
    Pingback from » How to Install BackTrack 5 R3 on Hyper-V 3.0 ??? Windows Server 2012 and Window 8 Lu??s Rato's Techy Thoughts

  • Anonymous
    May 28, 2014
    Pingback from Windows 2012(R2), mindenek alapja | reczigabor

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2014
    you have mention basis things

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2014
    HI Everyone.

    can anybody tell me how can we migrate Physical Servers on Hyper v-2013 R2..

  • Anonymous
    September 30, 2014
    HI Everyone.

    can anybody tell me how can we migrate Physical Servers on Hyper v-2013 R2..

  • Anonymous
    January 08, 2015
    The procedure VI's quite accurate

  • Anonymous
    February 25, 2015
    please let know if we try to install hyper-v on windows server 2008, it will install or not

  • Anonymous
    March 23, 2015
    HI All, how we will migrate server 208r2 with DC and AD to windows server 2012 r2 ,,,,??

  • Anonymous
    June 15, 2015
    Thank you very much for the information

  • Anonymous
    August 23, 2015
    Can you explain me what is SMB in server 2012.

  • Anonymous
    August 27, 2015
    https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh831795.aspx
    The Server Message Block (SMB) protocol is a network file sharing protocol that allows applications on a computer to read and write to files and to request services from server programs in a computer network. The SMB protocol can be used on top of its TCP/IP protocol or other network protocols. Using the SMB protocol, an application (or the user of an application) can access files or other resources at a remote server. This allows applications to read, create, and update files on the remote server. It can also communicate with any server program that is set up to receive an SMB client request. Windows Server 2012 introduces the new 3.0 version of the SMB protocol