Windows 8 Hyper-V

Yesterday I was in a meeting with Microsoft software about Windows 8 and Server 2012, and they said Hyper-V is built into Windows 8. I did a little googling and saw that some of the limitations were some of the enterprise level features like SAN offloading. Does anyone know if there is any other serious limitations to this? I'm wondering because i saw the MCITP SA upgrade to Server 2012 test objectives and 25% is Hyper-v. So i was hoping to use windows 8 to get me out of building a separate test system.

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jmritenour

Hyper-V in Windows 8 is more along the lines of VMware Worksation, ie it's not a baremetal solution like it is in Windows 2012. It might give you the basics, but it is definitely not going to be enough to prepare you for the 2012 exam objectives.

spiderjericho

But couldn't you do like ESX in VMworkstation? So you can have a hypervisor with VMs nested in your type 2 hypervisor?

I'm just curious how compelling Hyper-V being built into Win8 Pro is when you can get virtual box for free (not stating it has feature or functionality parity) but its good for what it is.

EV42TMAN

Up until now I've used Virtualbox but, the server 2012 objectives I figured I should use a real solution. I haven't had a chance to take a serious look at Windows 8 but if it would work out then upgrading my current system would be the cheapest solution. Either way if I have to build a dedicated system I will, I was just wondering about it since i haven't looked into yet, and I've seen some of the threads about the beta Windows 8 and Server 2012 tests.

jmritenour

spiderjericho wrote: »

But couldn't you do like ESX in VMworkstation? So you can have a hypervisor with VMs nested in your type 2 hypervisor?

I'm just curious how compelling Hyper-V being built into Win8 Pro is when you can get virtual box for free (not stating it has feature or functionality parity) but its good for what it is.

The thing is, the type 2 has to support allowing VMs access to the VT/XT CPU functions, and most don't. VMware workstation does, and ESXi supports it as well. As far as I know, Hyper-V in Windows 8/2012 doesn't - at least I haven't seen that listed as a new feature.

I guess one advantage to Hyper-V in Windows 8 would be that you could build out a VM on your workstation, then migrate it up to a 2012 Hyper-V node, like you can do with Vmware Workstation 8/9 to vSphere 5. Same hard drive format, same virtual hardware, etc. But even at that, I've got OVFs I've build up in virtual box for deployment on either Hyper-V or Xen (I keep a separate templates for VMware, since it's customization specs allow renaming, new SID, etc) and they work well enough for me.

Still, good to see Microsoft adding another option for desktop virutalization. VMware workstation is ridiculously expensive, and it's performance is horrid compared to VirtualBox - I have free licenses for Workstation 7 & 8 from my VCPs, but I don't even use them.

jibbajabba

spiderjericho wrote: »

But couldn't you do like ESX in VMworkstation? So you can have a hypervisor with VMs nested in your type 2 hypervisor?

I'm just curious how compelling Hyper-V being built into Win8 Pro is when you can get virtual box for free (not stating it has feature or functionality parity) but its good for what it is.

You got the "XP Mode" with Windows 7 - which is pretty much Virtual PC embedded - same thing .. in a way .. and free too ...

it_consultant

Here is a bunch of info on the topic;

Client Hyper-V

Check "hardware requirements", seems like it can access the second level address available in advanced processors.

"The root OS is also running on top of the Hyper-V virtualization layer, but it is special in that it has direct access to all the hardware."

EV42TMAN

Hyper-V in 2012 and 8 is suppose to support the CPU virtualization options, technically it did on 2008 R2 as well. I don't know if they cut too much out of it or not that i could use it for the Server 2012 upgrade test. I got to finish WGU first but if i got to build a Lab server then i'll start saving now. When i finish project+ i'll have some time to toy around with Server 2012 and Windows 8 to see if it will be good enough or not.