I’m viewing WS2012 R2 as a storage release by Microsoft (WS2012 was a Hyper-V/cloud release). There’s a lot happening in the storage side of WS2012 R2, and Microsoft has published a bunch of posts to keep you informed.
- Deploying Data Deduplication for VDI storage in Windows Server 2012 R2: This post informs you about the benefits of enabling the built-in de-duplication for VDI.
- Extending Data Deduplication to new workloads in Windows Server 2012 R2: Here they dig into using the built-in de-duplication for VDI. Note that the support statement is clear: it is (a) just for VDI workloads and (b) the Hyper-V and storage workloads must be on different physical servers (de-duplication will incur a resource cost). Other scenarios mixing the built-in de-duplication and Hyper-V are not supported – yes, it’s that simple.
- iSCSI Target Server in Windows Server 2012 R2: The big change is that it now uses VHDX instead of VHD (can’t create but can import). VHDX is dynamic but can be overridden using PowerShell.
- What’s new for SMI-S in Windows Server 2012 R2: The SMI-S provider for the iSCSI target is built into WS2012 R2, where it’s an add-on for WS2012.
Hi Aidan, thanks for all the great posts,
I did have some thoughts on the Extending dudupe section. you mentioned the support statement is clear its just for VDI and other scenarios for hyper v images are not supported. But when I read the article I didn’t read it exactly as you present it. I read it as the ‘Support’ is just for VDI not the ‘technology’ is just for VDI. also the statement isn’t so clear in regards to thinking the technology is only for VDI, as they ‘clearly’ point out that they were focused and worked on only performance and stability criteria for VDI. which is why that’s all they can support. But they also say at the very end that the new dedupe tech is a core part of the stack and there isn’t anything stopping you from using it on other work loads. this just tells me that the team only had time to validate it for this particular workload and as they continue they can possibly come out with another work load they support. Below is the quoted section.
Is Hyper-V in general supported with a Deduplicated volume?
“We spent a lot of time to ensure that Data Deduplication performs correctly on general virtualization workloads. However, we focused our efforts to ensure that the performance of optimized files is adequate for VDI scenarios. For non-VDI scenarios (general Hyper-V VMs), we cannot provide the same performance guarantees.”
“As a result, we do not support deduplication of arbitrary in use VHDs in Windows Server 2012 R2. However, since Data Deduplication is a core part of the storage stack, there is no explicit block in place that prevents it from being enabled on arbitrary workloads.”
that’s just my take though.
> Is Hyper-V in general supported with a Deduplicated volume?
Re-read what you stated that you clearly understand from my text and the MSFT article. You answered your own question before you asked it.