Transcript What’s New: Windows Server 2012 R2

What’s New:
Windows Server 2012 R2
Tim Vander Kooi
Systems Architect
www.NetComLearning.com
What’s New in Windows Server 2012 &
Server 2012 R2

Topics we will cover
 Changes
 New
to the GUI
Management Features and Abilities
 What’s
new in Storage
 Virtual
Networks
 Updates
 VDI
and additions to Server Virtualization
capabilities
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What’s new in Server
Management and Automation

Server Manager

PowerShell 4.0

Essentials

DHCP

IPAM
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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
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PowerShell 4.0

16 New Modules

652 New Cmdlets

3,603 New Parameters
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New Modules in Windows Server 2012 R2
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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
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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
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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
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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
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Demo
Highly available DHCP
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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
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New Storage Capabilities in Windows
Server 2012

SANS are NOT dead!

However…

They are no longer required to enable enterprise level
virtualization!!!
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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) harddisk drives
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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!!
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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!
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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
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What’s New in Windows Server 2012 &
Server 2012 R2

Where to go from here?
 SMB
3.0 - Server Pools and Storage Spaces
 Virtual
 VDI
Networking
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?
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Q&A
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