Windows Server 2012 brings a huge number of new features to the table in the area of scalability. The laundry list of things such as number of processors, maximum memory and more looks like this:
NIC teaming is a feature that has been present in older versions of the OS but has been updated in Windows Server 2012 to provide even more functionality. Previously this feature required identical NICs in order to properly bond together. Windows Server 2012 removes this requirement and adds the ability to use any available network path to increase overall throughput.
One of the new concepts here is something called a scale-out file server. You start with an initial hardware configuration in a cluster arrangement and simply add more nodes and storage to increase capacity.
Users see one set of resources attached to the cluster and don’t have to worry about connecting to specific systems or shares. The cluster provides the resources and handles any and all failures without loss of service.
The DataCenter edition of Windows Server 2012 supports an unlimited number of Hyper-V instances with the only real restriction being hardware-related. For performance reasons you wouldn’t want to allow more virtual machines than your server is capable of handling. Windows Server 2012 supports only two Hyper-V instances, although you can cascade licenses to add more if necessary.
Paul Ferrill has been writing in the computer trade press for over 25 years. He got his start writing networking reviews for PC Magazine on products like LANtastic and early versions of Novell Netware. He's been using and writing about Unix / Linux since before there was a Linux. Print publication credits include Datamation, Federal Computer Week, Information Week, InfoWorld, Network Computing, Network World, PC Magazine, and PC Computing. He's written for multiple web sites including IBM's Developerworks site. He recently had his first book published by Apress entitled "Pro Android Python with SL4A". Paul holds both BSEE and MSEE degrees and has written software for more computer platforms and architectures than he can remember.
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