What’s New: Windows Server 2012 R2 Tim Vander Kooi Systems Architect

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 & Server 2012 R2  Topics we will cover  Changes to the GUI  New Management Features and Abilities  What’s new in Storage  Virtual Networks  Updates and additions to Server Virtualization  VDI capabilities

What’s new in Server Management and Automation  Server Manager  PowerShell 4.0  Essentials  DHCP  IPAM

Server Manager  Management from a single pane of glass  Dashboard with your customized view of your server environment  Problems can be fixed across multiple servers from within Server Manager  Add roles and start or stop services on local or remote servers  Servers can be grouped to suit your needs

PowerShell 4.0  16 New Modules  652 New Cmdlets  3,603 New Parameters

New Modules in Windows Server 2012 R2

New Cmdlets in Windows Server 2012 R2

New Parameters in Windows Server 2012 R2

Windows Server Essentials Experience  Essentials is now installed as a Role on Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter servers  Can be installed on a Domain Controller but DC role is not required to allow for secondary server installation

Demo Server Manager Essentials

New Management Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  Highly Available DHCP Service  Provides out-of-the-box support for failover with no need for server clustering  Consists of two servers which can be located across different geographic locations  Can be setup in an active/active or active/passive configuration  Might still require configuration of DHCP Helper Addresses

New Management Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  IP Address Management (IPAM)  Manages both Physical and Virtual address space  Monitors health of IP Address environment  Uses SQL Server to store IP address information  Allows definition of user roles, access scope and access policy via role-based access control  Works in conjunction with System Center Virtual Machine Manager through a plugin

New Management Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  Dynamic Access Control  Automatically classify data based on content as files are created of modified  Manage access control and audit policies from Active Directory  Integration with RMS allows for automated encryption of data  Access and audit policies can be applied across multiple file servers

Demo Highly available DHCP

New Storage Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  Managing physical storage and storage virtualization  Application support for file servers  Parity, mirrored and simple configurations  Hardware offloading with SMB Direct  Data deduplication  Storage tiers  Transparent failover  SMB Multichannel  Storage QOS  SMB Encryption  Thin provisioning  Storage Live Migration

New Storage Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  SANS are NOT dead!  However…  They are no longer required to enable enterprise level virtualization!!!

New Storage Capabilities in Windows Server 2012  Storage Pools and Storage Spaces  Virtualization of storage  High availability and redundancy via mirroring or parity  Utilization of storage is optimized through thin provisioning  Connections possible to Solid-State Drives (SSD), Serial Attached SCSI (SAS) and Serial AT Attachment (SATA) hard- disk drives

New Storage Capabilities in Windows Server 2012 R2  Storage Tiering  Use solid-state drives (SSD) and hard-disk drives (HHD) in a tiered storage space  Improves performance/cost using industry-standard hardware  Data can be prioritized and pinned to appropriate performance tier

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Both Physical and Virtual scalability have been greatly improved  Host support  320 logical processors per host  4TB memory per host  1,024 virtual machines per host  Cluster support  64 physical nodes  8,000 virtual machines per cluster  Virtual Machine support  64 Virtual processors  1TB memory

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Generation 2 Virtual Machines  Dynamic Storage  UEFI firmware with support for GPT OS disks > 2TB  Faster boot time from Virtual SCSI  Online Resize capable  Security  UEFI firmware supports Secure Boot  Fewer emulated devices reduces attach surface of VM  Operations  PXE Boot via vNIC  Hot-add Optical drives

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  New Virtual Hard Disk Format (VHDX)  Capacity up to 64TB  Corruption protection in event of power failure  VHDX when used with Generation 2 machines  Expand and Shrink Virtual SCSI disks while VM is running

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Dynamic Memory  Introduced in Windows Server 2008 R2  Improvements in Server 2012 & 2012 R2  Minimum memory configuration  Startup memory configuration  Smart Paging  Memory Ballooning  Memory configuration while VM is running

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Virtual Machine Live Cloning  Export a clone of running VM  Allows Duplication of a virtual machine while it is running!  Point-in-time Image of running VM is exported to selected location  Exported VM can be imported at desired location  Export from existing checkpoint of a VM  Allows for export of a clone of a VM from an existing checkpoint  Excellent way to troubleshoot systems without downtime!!

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Live Migration has been Upgraded  Live Migration from Server 2012 hosts to Server 2012 R2 hosts  Allows for upgrading hosts from Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V to Windows Server 2012 R2 Hyper-V with no downtime of VMs  Includes Shared Nothing Live Migration  When using SMB share for storage, only the VM run state is transferred for faster migration  Can be automated with PowerShell  This is a one-way migration only!!!  No Live Migration from Server 2102 R2 back to Server 2012!

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 R2 Virtualization  Automatic Virtual Machine Activation  Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter host is activated using license key  Windows Server 2012 R2 VMs created using Automatic Virtual Machine Activation (AVMA) key activates against the valid activated Hyper-V host  AVMA key can be injected in the build for VMs  No product keys to manage on individual VMs  Reporting & Tracking are built in  Activation works when VMs are migrated across differing hosts

What’s New in Windows Server 2012 & Server 2012 R2  Where to go from here?  SMB Server Pools and Storage Spaces  Virtual Networking  VDI capabilities  What’s right for you?  System Center – SCCM, SCVMM, SCDPM all have expanded roles due to Server 2012 R2 improvements  The Cloud??? Does it effect you? Do you hybrid?

Q & A