Ws 2012 feature comparison hyper v

Feature
Comparison
Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and
Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

Contents
Introduction ............................................................................... 4
More Secure Multitenancy ..................................................... 5
Flexible Infrastructure .............................................................. 9
Scale, Performance, and Density ....................................... 13
High Availability ..................................................................... 18
Processor and Memory Support ....................................... 24
Network ................................................................................... 24
Storage ..................................................................................... 25
Manageability ......................................................................... 25

Feature Comparison: Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V 2

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Introduction
The following tables compare selected features of Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V and Windows Server
2012 Hyper-V. The tables include comments about each version’s performance, as well as a notation
about how well each feature is supported. The legend for this notation is as follows:

Level of Feature Support
Feature is supported

Feature is only partially supported

Feature is not supported


More Secure Multitenancy
Helps to ensure that each customer’s data is completely separate and secure from other customers’
information.

Feature Windows Server Windows Server Value Statement
2008 R2 Hyper-V 2012 Hyper-V

Multitenant Provides flexibility to
security and restrict access to a virtual
isolation machine on any node
Server virtualization Server virtualization while maintaining
provides isolation provides a fully isolated isolation of the network
between virtual machines. network layer of the and storage traffic.
However, the network datacenter through
layer of the datacenter is programmatically Provides enhanced
not fully isolated, and managed and extensible security and isolation of
Layer 2 connectivity is capabilities. This enables customers’ networks from
implied between different connection to the one another.
workloads that are network of virtual
running over the same machines with policy
infrastructure. enforcement for security
and isolation.

Private virtual Increases virtual machine
local area isolation in a multitenant
network environment, while not
(LAN), or This feature is not PVLANs allow Hyper-V degrading access to
PVLAN supported. administrators to isolate public network resources.
virtual machines from
each other (for example,
virtual machines cannot
contact other virtual
machines over the
network), while still
maintaining external
network connectivity for
all virtual machines.



DHCP guard Protects against rogue
DHCP servers.

This feature is not DHCP guard drops server
supported. messages from
unauthorized virtual
machines that are acting
as DHCP servers.
DHCP server traffic from
other virtual switch ports
is automatically dropped.

Router guard Provides better security
and an authorization
check for virtual
This feature is not Router guard drops machines.
supported. router advertisement and
redirection messages
from unauthorized virtual
machines that are acting
as routers.

Hyper-V Provides an open
Extensible platform for partners’
Switch plug-ins. Unified
This feature is not The Hyper-V Extensible management, easier
supported. Switch is a Layer 2 virtual support, and core
network switch that services for extensions
provides are provided without
programmatically charge. For example, all
managed and extensible extensions have live
capabilities to connect migration support by
virtual machines to the default, and no special
physical network. The coding for services is
Hyper-V Extensible required.
Switch is an open
platform that lets vendors
provide extensions
written to standard
Windows application
programming interface
(API) frameworks.



Extension Provides traffic visibility
monitoring at different layers and
enables statistical traffic
This feature is not Multiple monitoring and data to be gathered.
supported. filtering extensions can
be supported at the
entrance and outlet
portions of the Hyper-V
Extensible Switch.

Extension Provides enhanced
uniqueness security through a unique
extension state.
This feature is not Extension
supported. state/configuration is
unique to each instance
of a Hyper-V Extensible
Switch on a machine.

Extensions Optimizes the virtual
that learn life network for greater
cycle of performance.
virtual This feature is not These extensions can
machines supported. learn the flow of network
traffic based on the
workload life cycle of
virtual machines.

Extensions Provides flexibility to
that prohibit improve performance,
state changes management, and
This feature is not These extensions can diagnostics.
supported. better ensure security by
identifying harmful state
changes. The extensions
can stop these state
changes from being
implemented, while
allowing features for
monitoring and security
to be launched.



Multiple Provides a cost-effective
extensions on solution with better
same switch manageability and
This feature is not Multiple extensions can security.
supported. coexist on the same
Hyper-V Extensible
Switch.


Flexible Infrastructure
Makes it easier and faster to add and move servers.


Network Helps to achieve
virtualization maximum performance
with no new hardware
Virtual LANs (VLANs) are Hyper-V Network (servers, switches, or
used to isolate networks, Virtualization helps to appliances).
but they are very complex isolate network traffic on
to manage on a large a shared infrastructure
scale. without the need to use
VLANs. It also allows
users to move virtual
machines, as needed,
within a virtual
infrastructure while
preserving virtual
network assignments.
Network Virtualization
eliminates hierarchical IP
address assignments
across virtual machines.
A virtual machine can be
placed on any node,
regardless of IP address,
even across the cloud.

IP address Eliminates the need to
rewrite upgrade network
adapters, switches, or
This feature is not Each virtual machine appliances.
supported. customer address (CA) is
mapped to a unique host
provider address (PA).
Hyper-V Network
Virtualization uses IP
address rewrite to map
the CA to the PA.



Generic Enables better
Routing performance by reducing
Encapsulation the burden on the
This feature is not Hyper-V Network switches.
supported. Virtualization uses
Generic Routing
Encapsulation (GRE) IP
packets to map a virtual
network to a physical
network. It can use as few
as one IP address per
host.

Live Provides faster and
migration simultaneous migration.
Provides dynamic
Windows Server 2008 R2 Windows Server 2012 mobility of virtual
introduced the Live Hyper-V provides the machines across the
Migration feature, which ability to migrate virtual datacenter.
permits users to move a machines, with support
running virtual machine for simultaneous live
from one physical migrations. That is, users
computer to another with can move several virtual
no downtime—assuming machines at the same
that the virtual machine is time.
clustered.
Live migrations are not
limited to a cluster.
Virtual machines can be
migrated across cluster
boundaries, and between
stand-alone servers that
are not part of a cluster.



Live storage Provides better flexibility
migration and control while
managing storage in a
A virtual machine’s Live storage migration cloud environment.
storage can be moved allows users to move
only while the virtual virtual hard disks that are Provides flexibility to
machine is shut down. attached to a running move virtual hard disks
virtual machine. without downtime.

Users can transfer virtual
hard disks to a new
location for upgrading or
migrating storage,
performing back-end
storage maintenance, or
redistributing the storage
load.

Importing Provides a simpler, more
virtual streamlined way to
machines import or copy virtual
A virtual machine’s files With the Import Wizard, machines.
that are to be imported users can quickly and
can be duplicated and reliably import virtual
imported at another time. machines from one server
to another. The Import
Wizard detects and fixes
problems and does not
require a virtual machine
to be exported.

Merging Provides flexibility to
snapshots manage snapshots while
a virtual machine is
In Hyper-V 2008 R2, The Hyper-V Live Merge running.
merging a snapshot into feature allows users to
a parent virtual machine merge snapshots back Minimizes use of space
requires the virtual into the virtual machine for virtual machines with
machine to be turned off while it continues to run. snapshots.
for the entirety of the
merge operation.



Automation Eliminates the need for
support for development skills to
Hyper-V perform automation
Writing scripts for Hyper- Automation support support tasks.
V with in-box tools consists of more than 150
requires Windows built-in Hyper-V cmdlets
Management for Microsoft Windows
Instrumentation (WMI) PowerShell. With these
knowledge. That is, cmdlets, users can
development skills are perform all available tasks
needed. in Hyper-V Manager, as
well as several tasks
exclusively in Windows
PowerShell.


Scale, Performance, and
Density
Increases the scalability of the datacenter and uses fewer servers to run more virtual machine workloads.


Hyper-V host Improves performance
and workload and maximizes the use of
support processors and memory.
Users can configure up to Users can configure up to
64 logical processors on 320 logical processors on
hardware, 1 TB of hardware, 4 TB of
physical memory, 4 physical memory, 64
virtual processors, and up virtual processors, and up
to 64 GB of memory on a to 1 TB of memory on a
virtual machine. Up to 16 virtual machine. Up to 64
nodes and 1,000 virtual nodes and 8,000 virtual
machines in a cluster also machines in a cluster also
can be supported. can be supported.

Non-Uniform Provides enhanced
Memory performance on large
Access virtual machines by
(NUMA) This feature is not A NUMA topology can be enabling the guest
support supported. projected onto a virtual operation system and
inside virtual machine, and guest applications to access
machines operating systems and local memory faster than
applications can make remote memory.
intelligent NUMA
decisions.



Support for Reduces network latency
Single Root and host CPU overhead
I/O (for processing network
Virtualization This feature is not Windows Server 2012 traffic); increases network
(SR-IOV) supported. Hyper-V enables support throughput.
networking for SR-IOV-capable
devices network devices and
allows the SR-IOV virtual
function of a physical
network adapter to be
assigned directly to a
virtual machine.

Dynamic Enables the consolidation
Memory, of more virtual machines,
startup especially in Virtual
memory, and Virtual machines are Windows Server 2012 Desktop Infrastructure
minimum assigned extra memory Hyper-V can reclaim the (VDI) environments.
memory because Hyper-V cannot unused memory from
reclaim the memory from virtual machines with a
them after startup. minimum memory value
lower than their startup
value.

Hyper-V Provides a reliable way to
smart paging keep virtual machines
running when there is not
This feature is not If a virtual machine is enough physical memory
supported. configured with a lower available.
minimum memory than
its startup memory and
Hyper-V needs additional
memory to restart it,
Hyper-V smart paging is
used to bridge the gap
between minimum and
startup memory.



Runtime Provides flexibility to use
memory Dynamic Memory as
configuration needed, without affecting
This feature is not Users can make other virtual machines.
supported. configuration changes to
Dynamic Memory
(increase maximum
memory or decrease
minimum memory) when
a virtual machine is
running.

Resource Enables users to track the
Metering in use of virtual machines.
Hyper-V Resource Metering allows
This feature is not
supported. users to track how many
CPU, memory, storage,
and network resources
are consumed by a virtual
machine over time. This
information is gathered
automatically (without
the need to constantly
collect data from the
virtual machine) and
persists with the virtual
machine through live
migration/other mobility
operations.

Windows Server 2012
Hyper-V can track and
report the amount of
data transferred per IP
address or virtual
machine.



Virtual hard Helps to ensure high-
disk format quality performance on
(VHDX) large-sector disks.
This feature is not VHDX supports up to 64
supported. TB of storage. It helps to
provide protection from
corruption due to power
failures by logging
updates to the VHDX
metadata structures. It
also helps to prevent
performance degradation
on large-sector physical
disks by optimizing
structure alignment.

Offloaded Allows the CPU to
data transfer concentrate on the
support processing needs of an
This feature is not Windows Server 2012 application.
supported. Hyper-V uses SAN copy
offload to copy large Provides rapid
amounts of data from provisioning and
one location to another. migration of virtual
machines.

Data Center Helps to reduce the cost
Bridging and complexity of
(DCB) maintaining separate
This feature is not Windows Server 2012 traffic for network,
supported. Hyper-V uses DCB- management, live
capable hardware to migration, and storage.
converge multiple types
of network traffic onto a Makes it easy to change
single network adapter, allocations to different
with a maximum level of traffic flows.
service to each.



Virtual Fibre Enables Fibre Channel to
Channel in connect directly from
Hyper-V within virtual machines.
This feature is not Virtual Fibre Channel in
supported. Hyper-V provides Fibre
Channel ports within the
guest operating system.

Multipath I/O Helps to ensure highly
(MPIO) available connectivity.
functionality
for Fibre This feature is not Windows Server 2012
Channel supported. Hyper-V uses MPIO
storage functionality for proper
within a connectivity to Fibre
virtual Channel storage within a
machine virtual machine.

Support for Uses emerging
4 KB disk innovation in storage
sectors in hardware to increase
Hyper-V This feature is not Windows Server 2012 capacity and reliability.
virtual hard supported. Hyper-V supports 4 KB
disks disk sectors. This reduces
the impact of 512e disks
on the virtual hard disk
stack.

Quality of Enables hosting providers
Service (QoS) and enterprises to deliver
minimum services with predictable
bandwidth This feature is not Windows Server 2012 network performance to
supported. Hyper-V uses minimum virtual machines on
bandwidth to assign servers running Hyper-V.
specific bandwidth for
each type of traffic and to Reduces the need for
ensure fair sharing during expensive network
congestion. adapters.


High Availability
Increases customers’ resilience to failures in the datacenter.


Backup Reduces backup size and
capability cost.

Data can be preserved by Windows Server 2012 Saves network bandwidth
performing full-file Hyper-V supports and disk space.
backups. There are two incremental backup of
methods for this: virtual hard disks while
the virtual machine is
 Back up the virtual
running:
machine and
snapshots as flat files  During each
when offline. incremental backup,
only the differences
 Use Windows Server
are backed up.
or third-party tools to
back up the virtual
machine itself, with a
normal backup of the
operating system and
data.



Disaster Offers an affordable, in-
recovery box business continuity
and disaster recovery
Support is provided for Asynchronous replication solution.
disaster recovery within IT of virtual machines occurs
environments and across over a network link from Provides the ability to
datacenters, using one Hyper-V host at a quickly recover business
geographically dispersed primary site to another functions during
clustering capabilities. Hyper-V host at a replica downtime, with minimal
site. It also can restore or no data loss.
Failover clustering is used
the system from an Delivers failure recovery
with hardware-based
unplanned shutdown. in minutes.
SAN replication across
datacenters. This In the event of failure
approach is used to (power outage, fire, or
prevent the outage of an natural disaster) at the
entire datacenter, but it is primary site,
typically expensive. administrators can
manually fail over
production virtual
machines to the Hyper-V
server at the recovery
site.
During failover, virtual
machines are brought
back to a consistent point
in time, and they can be
accessed by the rest of
the network within
minutes.
This version of Hyper-V is
an affordable, reliable
business continuity
solution that can help to
restore data at a remote
site.



Network Provides higher reliability
Interface Card against network failure.
(NIC)
Teaming Hyper-V 2008 R2 uses Windows Server 2012
for load network adapter teaming, Hyper-V provides built-in
balancing a third-party technology support for NIC Teaming:
and failover that provides fault A virtual machine can
(LBFO) tolerance for multiple have virtual network
network adapters. adapters that are
connected to more than
one virtual switch. If a
network adapter under
that virtual switch is
disconnected, it still has
connectivity. NIC
Teaming supports up to
32 network adapters in a
team.

Hyper-V Increases availability and
clustering enables access to server-
based applications during
Hyper-V 2008 R2 has Windows Server 2012 planned and unplanned
specific features, like Hyper-V provides downtime.
failover clustering and protection against
clustered live migration, application and service
that are related to Hyper- failure, and system and
V clustering. These hardware failure.
features are described
later in this table.

Guest Provides the ability to
clustering connect Fibre Channel
directly from within
Guest clustering is Workloads can be virtual machines.
supported by using iSCSI. virtualized by directly
accessing cluster guest
operating systems and
storage over Fibre
Channel or through iSCSI.



live Provides quicker
migration migration by using higher
network bandwidth.
The Live Migration Live migrations in a
feature requires the clustered environment
Failover Clustering can use higher network
feature to be added and bandwidths (up to 10
configured on servers GB). Administrators can
running Hyper-V. Hyper- perform multiple
V and failover clustering simultaneous live
can be used together to migrations.
make a virtual machine
highly available.

Encrypted Enhances physical
cluster security for deployment
volumes outside the secure
This feature is not Microsoft BitLocker- datacenter.
supported. encrypted cluster disks
provide security for
deployment outside the
secure datacenter. They
also provide a safeguard
for the cloud.

Cluster Simplifies the
Shared configuration and
Volume (CSV) operation of virtual
2.0 This feature is not Windows Server 2012 machines.
supported. Hyper-V can integrate
with storage arrays for Provides greater security
replication and hardware and enhanced
snapshots out of the box. performance.



Application Provides monitoring for
monitoring services and event logs
inside virtual machines.
This feature is not The health of key services
supported. provided by virtual Reduces the risk and
machines can be impact of various issues.
monitored. If an issue is
detected, automatic
corrective action can be
initiated. Such action
includes restarting a
virtual machine or
moving it to a different
Hyper-V server. This
provides higher
availability to workloads
that do not support
clustering.

In-box live For administrators, helps
migration to save time and improve
queuing efficiency.
This feature is not Administrators can
supported. perform large, multiselect
actions to queue live
migrations of multiple
virtual machines.

Virtual Ensures the availability of
machine critical virtual machines.
failover
Administrators can Administrators can Provides optimum
prioritization
configure the preference configure priorities to resource use by ensuring
for node order on control the order of resource availability for
failover. virtual machine failover. high-priority virtual
Lower priority virtual machines.
machines automatically
release resources if they
are needed for higher
priority virtual machines.



Affinity Migrates partnered
virtual virtual machines at
machine rules failover.
Administrators can Administrators can
configure a preference configure partnered
that attempts to keep a virtual machines to
designated virtual migrate simultaneously at
machine off the same failover.
node as similar virtual
machines.

Anti-affinity Ensures selected
virtual migrated virtual machines
machine rules do not reside on the
This feature is not Administrators can same node in a failover.
supported. specify that two virtual
machines cannot coexist
on the same node in a
failover scenario.


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 4 64
machine

Memory per virtual machine 64 GB 1 TB

Active virtual machines 384 1,024

Maximum cluster nodes 16 64

Maximum cluster virtual 1,000 8,000
machines

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 Yes, with no limits (as many as
through System Center Virtual the hardware will allow)
Machine Manager

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 Yes
system setup

VMConnect support for RemoteFX No Yes


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