Microsoft just recently announced the release of Windows Server 2012. You can find more on this announcement here ( microsoft.com/ws2012 ).
I wanted to take a moment to highlight some of the improvements in Server 2012, specifically around virtualization. It is a fair statement that Microsoft has been playing a catch up game with virtualization over the first few years of the product existance.
That changed significantly, with Hyper-V on Server 2008, when customers saw an enterprise class hypervisor emerge. It further improved with the release of Windows Server 2008 R2. And now…with additions to Hyper-V on Server 2012, Microsoft is leading the industry in hypervisor specifications. Have a look:
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Windows Server 2012 Standard/Datacenter Editions with Hyper-V Enabled
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| Windows Server 2008 R2 | Windows Server 2012 | Improvement Factor | |
| Logical Processors Per Host | 64 | 320* | 5x |
| Physical Memory per Host | 1 Terabyte | 4 Terabytes* | 4x |
| Virtual Processors per Host | 512 | 2048* | 4x |
| Virtual Machines per Host | 384 | 1024* | 2.7x |
| Virtual Processors per VM | 4 | 64 | 16x |
| Memory per VM | 64 Gigabytes | 1 Terabyte | 16x |
| Maximum Virtual Disk | ~2 TB | 64 TB* | 32x |
| Nodes in a Cluster | 16 | 64* | 4x |
| Virtual Machine in a Cluster | 1,000 | 8,000* | 8x |
*= Industry Leading