{"id":14857,"date":"2013-06-06T05:26:05","date_gmt":"2013-06-06T04:26:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14857"},"modified":"2014-07-02T14:22:42","modified_gmt":"2014-07-02T14:22:42","slug":"hyper-v-server-2012-r2-is-announced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=14857","title":{"rendered":"Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 is Announced"},"content":{"rendered":"

EDIT: Download Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 from here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was talking to Jeff Woolsey (Windows Server Principal Program Manager Lead) tonight and he told me that today at TechEd North America he announced that there will be a Hyper-V Server 2012 R2.\u00a0 This is the free version of Hyper-V, with all of the features (minus the GUI) and all of the scalability that you get with Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012 R2.\u00a0 Yes, that includes Failover Clustering (HA), unlimited Live Migration (with compression\/SMB), shared VHDX, extensibility, Hyper-V Network Virtualiztion, Hyper-V Replica, etc.<\/p>\n

It should be no surprise, but Hyper-V Server has been released with every version of Windows Server.\u00a0 It\u2019s the ESXi Free (and more) killer.\u00a0 Once RTM, it\u2019ll be a free download, as always.<\/p>\n

Licensing-wise, Hyper-V Server has a niche market.\u00a0 That\u2019s because you never license VMs for Windows Server, even with VMware or XenServer; you license hosts with Standard (smaller installs) or Datacenter (makes sense financially with around 7 or more VMs per host, depending on Standard versus Datacenter license cost for your specific case).\u00a0 So if you\u2019re purchasing Windows Server per host for the VMs that will run on the host, then you might as well install Windows Server on the host to enable Hyper-V.\u00a0 Where Hyper-V Server does have a place is:<\/p>\n