Now yesterday Microsoft released the Release Preview of Windows 8 and the Release Candidates for Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012.
Since the first introduction in September 2011 at the Build conference, Hyper-V got new features in every single release they made. In this blog post we will look at the new scalability of Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Hyper-V.
| System | Resource | Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V | Windows Server “8″ Developer Preview Hyper-V | Windows Server “8″ Beta Hyper-V | Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Hyper-V |
| Host | Logical Processors | 64 | 160 | 160 | 320 |
| Physical Memory | 1 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | 4 TB | |
| Virtual CPUs per Host | 512 | 1024 | 1024 | 2048 | |
| VM | Virtual CPUs per VM | 4 | 32 | 32 | 64 |
| Memory per VM | 64 GB | 512 GB | 1 TB | 1 TB | |
| Maximum Virtual Disk | 2 TB | 16 TB | 64 TB | 64 TB | |
| Active VMs per Host | 384 | 1024 | 1024 | 1024 | |
| Cluster | Maximum Nodes | 16 | 64 | 64 | 64 |
| Maximum VMs | 1000 | 4000 | 4000 | 4000 |
Now let’s compare Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Hyper-V with VMware
| System | Resource | Windows Server 2012 Release Candidate Hyper-V | VMware ESXi 5.0 | VMware vSphere 5.0 Enterprise Plus |
| Host | Logical Processors | 320 | 160 | 160 |
| Physical Memory | 4 TB | 32 GB | 2 TB | |
| Virtual CPUs per Host | 2048 | 2048 | 2048 | |
| VM | Virtual CPUs per VM | 64 | 8 | 32 |
| Memory per VM | 1 TB | 32 GB | 1 TB | |
| Maximum Virtual Disk | 64 TB | 2 TB | 2 TB | |
| Active VMs per Host | 1024 | 512 | 512 | |
| Cluster | Maximum Nodes | 64 | N/A | 32 |
| Maximum VMs | 4000 | N/A | 3000 |
One thing you have to remember is that Hyper-V is free and comes as role in Windows Server or as a standalone product which can be downloaded and used for free.
Dear Thomas,
I’m sure Microsoft improved Hyper-V enormous, but comparing numbers only is a little bit boring. VMware ESX and vSphere is doing a good job in large enterprise datacenters since several years. Huge numbers only aren’t able to run and manage big datacenters. And this is the challenge for Microsoft! Offering a stable, manageable und good virtualization solution for heterogeneous environments. I’m not sure if Microsoft can beat VMware in this discipline because VMware has lot’s of experience in large and heterogeneous datacenters. It’s not all about supporting different operating systems. Storage and networking are core components in an enterprise datacenter, too. Supporting all kind of different solutions and implementations of networking and storage is nearly impossible since you don’t have this long time experience like VMware. I’m sure Microsoft did a great job and Hyper-V 3.0 is IMHO the first virtualization solution that is compareable with VMware vSphere, but even for Microsoft it’s a long way until they reach the maturity of VMware. Nonetheless I’m very excited about Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V 3.0. Let’s wait for the Release and what’s happening out there in the IT world. Microsoft Hyper-V 3.0 is very cheap compared to VMware and this is a big advantage to VMware. I’m sure Microsoft will share lot’s of the virtualization market in the next years. But I’m curious about it, if Microsoft can compete with VMware. VMware is not sleeping, their development departments improving the the products, too.
Kind regards
Tschokko
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…pfft Microsoft still fails to accomplish even the most basic of tasks that vsphere does. the biggest issue is configuring remote management…its like a 20 step process!!! i don’t have to mess with anything for esxi, in order for it to work, its so god damn easy; a 10 year old could do it. the fact that someone had to create a tool to automate the steps to enable hyper v management, tells you a lot about how complicated it is. if i have to spend more than a half hour (more like 3 hrs) trying to enable remote management between desktop and server, then it is not worth consideration. back to esxi for me.
@Tschokko, I seem to remember similar conversations about Apple and RIM around four years ago; experience in a space is great but it does not guarantee success. While I agree VMWare appears to be pretty active in terms of development I think we are approaching a watershed where the innovative features are moving beyond the requirements of most environments. When an organisation can no longer see a cost benefit to implementing a technology, they start to really focus on the cost, that’s when it’s going to start getting pretty hairy for VMWare.
@jbird I can’t really understand your problem
I did a lot of Hyper-V installations and I never had a problem with remote management. No problems at all, with Hyper-V Manager, Failover Cluster Manager, PowerShell or SCVMM. Maybe you did something special/wrong?
@deployzilla @Tschokko Apple and RIM is a good example
It’s like VHS vs. Blueray, only because something is older it does not me it is better. And maybe Microsoft has not a long history in Virtualization as VMware but they do have a lot of history in the datacenter environment, and the current Hyper-V Team is doing a really good job. Sure it will be interesting to see what is happening in the future, and of course it is not only about who has the better options, more features or who supports more Virtual CPUs. But in the last years I had to hear from a lot of VMware consultants that Hyper-V is not made for Enterprise environments. Now with the release of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V it will be my turn to use this argument 
And I totally agree with deployzilla it is all about costs and this will be the Microsoft advantage.
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