What's New In Hyper-V Replica in Windows Server 2012 R2

As I've been travelling around Australia showing some of the capabilities of Windows Server 2012 R2, one of the areas of interest to many attendees are the Hyper-V Replica features. To start, it's best to cover off what was improved between Windows Server 2012 and Windows Server 2012 R2 in regards to Hyper-V Replica.

The main improvements were as follows:

Flexibility in replication frequency - you can now replicate in 30 second, 5 minute or 15 minute intervals instead of only offering 5 minute intervals. This allows for either more up to date replications if bandwidth permits, or the ability to update less frequently.

24 recovery points - this was previously a maximum of 16, which now translates into 24 hours of recovery points to work with. There has also been a change in the way that the remote copies are updated, which is less disk intensive than the VSS method used previously.

Extended Replication - There is now the option to have a second replica, effectively giving you a third Hyper-V server or even a third site to replicate your VMs to. Where this gets interesting for Microsoft partners is that you could potentially offer this as a further level of data recovery to your customers from your own environment or from a hosting provider, so the customer has the ability to get up and running again from a remote location.

There are many other new Hyper-V features that were introduced, if you want to take a look at them the TechNet page is here https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn282278.aspx

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