Today is the day Microsoft official releases Windows Server 2012 and Microsoft is doing a virtual launch event. Windows Server 2012 is a huge step forward for Microsoft virtualization technology Hyper-V.

I the past year I wrote a lot of blog post about the new features in Windows Server 2012 and Hyper-V. I also did some comparing between VMware vSphere 5 and Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V.

First to get an overview about the new feature in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V you should check out my blog post: Hyper-V 2012 – Hey I Just Met You And This Is Crazy

Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Features

You can find some advanced blog posts about new technologies, which cover for example Hyper-V Replica, Converged Fabric and Cluster-Aware Updating here:

• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: VM Resource Metering via PowerShell
• Hyper-V VHDX Format Specification v1.00
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: Virtual Disk VHD & VHDX recommendations
• How to setup a Virtual Machine with Hyper-V Replica
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: Cluster-Aware Updating (CAU)
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: How to clone a Virtual Domain Controller
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V – How to create a new VHD from a source VHD
• Hyper-V Replica – The Game Changer
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Converged Fabric
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: Supported Guest Operating Systems
• Windows Server 2012: Datacenter TCP (DCTCP)
• Windows Server 2012 NIC Naming
• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: Convert VHD to VHDX
• Windows Server 2012 – Add and Remove GUI
• Windows Server 2012 – CDN (Consistent Device Naming)
• Windows Server 2012: CSV Cache Benchmark
• Create a Windows Server 2012 iSCSI Target Server
• Setup Windows Server 8 Hyper-V Cluster
• Windows Server 8 NIC Teaming

Hyper-V vs. VMware

If you are a VMware vSphere user at the moment, you should checkout my blog post series about Hyper-V vs. VMware.

• Convert VMware vSphere Virtual Machines to Microsoft Hyper-V
• Quick: Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V vs VMware vSphere 5.1
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Scale
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere - Guest Clustering
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Networking
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Storage
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Host Deployment
• Hyper-V vs. VMware vSphere – Fault Tolerance

Hyper-V and Windows PowerShell

If you are deploying Windows Server 2012 in your environment have a look at PowerShell. Windows PowerShell v3 which is included in Windows Server 2012 and Windows 8 is also a great release. I recommend reading the following posts:

• Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V: VM Resource Metering via PowerShell
• Create Multiple Hyper-V Virtual Machines via PowerShell
• Get Integration Services Version of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V Virtual Machines
• Replace netsh with Windows PowerShell – Basic network cmdlets
• Replace Diskpart with Windows PowerShell – Basic Storage cmdlets
• Windows Server 2012: Doing multiple configuration changes on Hyper-V VMs via PowerShell
• Windows Server 2012: Hyper-V Snapshot Reminder
• Hyper-V 3: Import and Export VMs with PowerShell
• Hyper-V 3: Attach multiple VHDs via PowerShell

Hyper-V and System Center

To manage Hyper-V Microsoft offers System Center 2012 and with the release of Service Pack 1 Microsoft will support the new features in Windows Server 2012.

• What’s new in System Center 2012 Service Pack 1 Beta
• SCVMM 2012: Add Logical Network to all Hyper-V Hosts in HostGroup via PowerShell
• Customize System Center App Controller Portal
• SCVMM 2012 Hyper-V Bare-Metal Deployment on Cisco UCS C200
• How to add VMware vSphere in SCVMM
• System Center 2012 App Controller connecting to Windows Azure
• System Center 2012 SP1 CTP2 – Virtual Machine Manager Improvements #1
• System Center 2012 CTP2 – Virtual Machine Manager

Interview about the new feature in Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

In July I met with Carsten Rachfahl who is a MVP for Virtual Machine and the owner of hyper-v-server.de. Carsten was visiting Switzerland and he also took the time to do some interviews and I had the chance to speak with him.

In the interview (in german) we talked about the new release of Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V which is included in Windows Server 2012:

Next Events

• System Center 2012 SP1 TAP Airlift @Redmond
• Two Private Cloud Sessions at Geekmania 2012
• E2EVC Virtualization Conference
• Techdays Switzerland

Downloads

• Windows Server 2012 Evaluation
• Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2012

Credits for the blog post title go to Michael Faden from Microsoft Switzerland.