Microsoft Virtualization Secrets

Summary

Ever since the release of Windows 2000 I have offered half-day seminars covering new features of the latest Microsoft operating system. When the Windows Server 2012 beta was released, I provided a four-hour online overview of its new features. However, I could only cover a fraction of what has been added because of the sheer scale of change and new functionality, all of which propels Windows Server to a true cloud platform. This chapter has touched on some of the features that are related to virtualization or have the biggest impact on it, but take some time to look at Windows Server 2012 and understand that in order to truly get the most out of its features, you may need to rethink how some management actions are performed. Taking that time up front will result in staggering benefits to long-term productivity.

This chapter covered some of the major areas that will affect your virtualization endeavors. Perhaps the biggest changes are around the new Storage Spaces feature, File System changes, and the new SMB capabilities that will be used heavily as your environment starts to use SMB file shares to store Hyper-V virtual machines without having to compromise performance or features. The new flexibility in the use of Server Core will enable servers to be easily configured initially and then reduced to the Server Core configuration level to reduce maintenance and patching specifically. This is especially useful for Hyper-V servers, but should be considered for all Windows ...