Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V - What you shold know

As a Server Admin, theoretically & practically, you should know what's the feature technology behind Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

Here I list down bunch of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V features technologies for your info...

Multitenant security and isolation

-Server virtualization provides a fully isolated network layer of the datacenter through programmatically managed and extensible capabilities.

Private virtual local area network (LAN), or PVLAN

-PVLANs can isolate VM from each other meaning you VM cannot contact other VM over the network while still maintaining external network connectivity for all VM.

DHCP guard

-DHCP guard drops server messages from unauthorized VM that are acting as DHCP servers.

Router guard

-Router guard drops router advertisement and redirection messages from unauthorized VM that are acting as routers.

Hyper-V Extensible Switch

-The Hyper-V Extensible Switch is an open platform that lets vendors provide extensions written to standard Windows application programming interface (API) frameworks.

Extension monitoring

-Multiple monitoring and filtering extensions can be supported at the entrance and outlet portions of the Hyper-V Extensible Switch.

Extension uniqueness

-Extension configuration is unique to each instance of a Hyper-V Extensible Switch on a machine.

Extensions that prohibit state changes

-The extensions can stop state changes from being implemented, while allowing features for monitoring and security to be launched.

Multiple extensions on same switch

-Multiple extensions can coexist on the same Hyper-V Extensible Switch.

Network virtualization

-Hyper-V Network Virtualization helps to isolate network traffic on a shared infrastructure without the need to use VLANs. It also allows users to move VM, as needed, within a virtual infrastructure while preserving virtual network assignments.A VM can be placed on any node even across the cloud.

IP address rewrite

-Each VM customer address (CA) is mapped to a unique host provider address (PA).

Generic Routing Encapsulation

-Hyper-V Network Virtualization uses Generic Routing Encapsulation (GRE) IP packets to map a virtual network to a physical network.

Live migration

-Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V can migrate VM, with support for simultaneous live migrations. That is, users can move several VM at the same time.

Live storage migration

-Live storage migration allows users to move virtual hard disks that are attached to a running VM.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 VM

-With the Import Wizard, users can quickly and reliably import VM from one server to another.

Merging snapshots

-The Hyper-V Live Merge feature allows users to merge snapshots back into the VM while it continues to run.

Automation support for Hyper-V

-Automation support consists of more than 150 built-in Hyper-V cmdlets.

Hyper-V host and workload support

-Users can configure up to 320 logical processors on hardware, 4 TB of physical memory, 64 virtual processors, and up to 1 TB of memory on a VM. Up to 64 nodes and 8,000 VM in a cluster also can be supported.

Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) support inside VM

-A NUMA topology can be projected onto a VM, and guest operating systems and applications can make intelligent NUMA decisions.

Support for Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) networking devices

-Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V enables support for SR-IOV-capable network devices and allows the SR-IOV virtual function of a physical network adapter to be assigned directly to a VM.

Dynamic Memory, startup memory, and minimum memory

-Can reclaim the unused memory from VM with a minimum memory value lower than their startup value.

Hyper-V smart paging

-If a VM is configured with a lower 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 memory configuration

-Users can make configuration changes to Dynamic Memory (increase maximum memory or decrease minimum memory) when a VM is running.

Resource Metering in Hyper-V

-Resource Metering allows users to track how many CPU, memory, storage, and network resources are consumed by a VM over time.

Virtual hard disk format (VHDX)

-VHDX supports up to 64 TB of storage.

Offloaded data transfer support

-Uses SAN copy offload to copy large amounts of data from one location to another.

Data Center Bridging (DCB)

-Uses DCB-capable hardware to converge multiple types of network traffic onto a single network adapter,with a maximum level of service to each.

Virtual Fibre Channel in Hyper-V

-Provides Fibre Channel ports within the guest OS.

Multipath I/O (MPIO) functionality for Fibre Channel storage within a VM

-Uses MPIO functionality for proper connectivity to Fibre Channel storage within a VM.

Support for 4 KB disk sectors in Hyper-V virtual hard disks

-Supports 4 KB disk sectors. This reduces the impact of 512e disks on the virtual hard disk stack.

Quality of Service (QoS) minimum bandwidth

-Uses minimum bandwidth to assign specific bandwidth for each type of traffic and to ensure fair sharing during congestion.

Backup capability

-Supports incremental backup of virtual hard disks while the VM is running.

Disaster recovery

-Asynchronous replication of VM occurs over a network link from one Hyper-V host at a primary site to another Hyper-V host at a replica site. It also can restore the system from an unplanned shutdown.In the event of at the primary site, administrators can manually fail over production VM to the Hyper-V server at the recovery site.

During failover, VM are brought back to a consistent point in time, and they can be accessed by the rest of the network within minutes.

Network Interface Card (NIC) Teaming for load balancing and failover (LBFO)

-Provides built-in support for NIC Teaming: A VM can have virtual network 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 clustering

-Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V provides protection against application and service failure, and system and hardware failure.

Guest clustering

-Workloads can be virtualized by directly accessing cluster guest operating systems and storage over Fibre Channel or through iSCSI.

Live Migration

-Live migrations in a clustered environment can use higher network bandwidths (up to 10 GB). Administrators can perform multiple simultaneous live migrations.

Encrypted cluster volumes

Microsoft BitLocker-encrypted cluster disks provide security for deployment outside the secure datacenter. They also provide a safeguard for the cloud.

Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) 2.0

-Can integrate with storage arrays for replication and hardware snapshots out of the box.

Application monitoring

-The health of key services provided by VM can be monitored. If an issue is detected, automatic corrective action can be initiated. Such action includes restarting a VM or moving it to a different Hyper-V server. This provides higher availability to workloads that do not support clustering.

In-box live migration queuing

-Administrators can perform large,multiselect actions to queue live migrations of multiple VM.

VM failover prioritization

-Administrators can configure priorities to control the order of VM failover. Lower priority VM automatically release resources if they are needed for higher priority VM.