About This Book Get acquainted with the basics of Windows Server Hyper-V 2012 R2 and understand how to efficiently design a highly available virtualization solution Assess your physical server environment and understand the fundamentals of server consolidation and sizing of Hyper-V hosts Design practical solutions for common design patterns with explanations of these design decisions Who This Book Is For This book is aimed at IT admins, consultants, and architects alike who wish to deploy, manage, and maintain Hyper-V solutions in organizations of various sizes. You are expected to have a working knowledge of managing Windows Server and a fair understanding of networking and storage concepts. What You Will Learn Set up independent and highly available clustered Hyper-V hosts via GUI and PowerShell Acquire knowledge about Generation 1 and 2 Virtual Machines, their creation and management, and also look at the VM Conversion process Understand NIC teaming, Extensible Virtual Switch, and other networking advancements Gain insight into virtual machine storage changes and their follow-up benefits Discover backup and recovery patterns for Hyper-V Familiarize yourself with the essentials of Hyper-V Replica Leverage the benefits of Microsoft VDI In DetailThis book is a practical, example-oriented tutorial that will guide you through the basics and architecture of the Hyper-V platform and help you understand how to build your virtualization infrastructure from the ground up. It then goes on to focus on scalability and high availability aspects, and trains you to set up highly available Hyper-V clusters and perform the live migration of virtual machines. You will also learn about advancements in virtual networking and storage in Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Finally, the book then advises you on how to set up backup and recovery and how to prepare a disaster recovery plan via Hyper-V Replica, concluding with insight into Microsoft VDI implementation guidance.