Difference between Server 2012 and Windows Server 2008 – Interview preparation!
Old January 19, 2015 , by ram.kumar 13 Comments on Difference between Server 2012 and
Windows Server 2008 – Interview preparation! 110890
One of the very important questions which is asked usually in interviews to find out the level of
knowledge you have in general, regardless of whether you have worked in all the technologies
associated in Server operating systems. From Microsoft Windows Server 2003 to Windows
Server 2008 to Windows Server 2012 and now Server 2012 R2, Microsoft and IT world have
come a long way. One of the important things to remember is, no matter how big IT world have
grown, some of the overview or startup questions for a Server position or Support Engineer’s
position remains the same. Every interviewer would like to know how well you know about the
new technology, whether you read things even if your organization may not have migrated to the
latest Server operating systems.
So how do we answer this question – quite frankly this is a big question and it can be answered
in number of ways. The best way to answer these questions is to look for features which are
related to your area of expertise. Suppose you have been working in Active Directory team, start
from the latest features of upgraded features in Server 2012 and then Server 2012 R2. In this
way, you will portray a better idea of what is in store if your organization or the recruiting
organization is planning to migrate soon to the new Server operating system.
In general, if you are applying for a support level position this question needs to be answered in a
very informative way reflecting the level of knowledge you possess even though you may not
have necessarily worked well in both. It is very important to inform the key differences from
Windows Server 2008 and Windows Server 2008 R2 to Windows Server 2012 and Server 2012
R2. Some of the differences which can be answered are:
Server 2008 version had both 32 bit and 64 bit releases, however Server 2008 R2 started with
migrating to completely 64 bit operating system releases for better performance and scalability,
and Server 2012 completely is a 64 bit operating system. That’s where the future is heading in
Microsoft Windows Server Operating systems.
IIS 8: Windows Server 2012 features IIS 8 which brings its latest version with features like
script pre-compilation, granular process throttling, centralized certificate management, etc.
Power Shell 3.0: Power Shell is going to be the future of Microsoft. With Command line
interfaces being less popular over the last decade, Microsoft is building up with newer versions
of power shell with more advanced features and that’s where IT Professionals have to keep in
mind and keep learning the new cmdlets.
Server Core: Server core was introduced in Windows Server 2008 as a competitor to
Linux/Unix operating systems but with limited features. Microsoft is coming up with advanced
features and with Server 2012 installation, it gives an option to switch to Server Core and vice-
versa after the installation.
Direct Access: Direct Access was considered to be a replacement to VPN and was introduced
with Windows Server 2008 but with Server 2012, it is much easier to use.
Hyper-V 3.0: Hyper-V introduces a new version 3.0 which offers an extensible virtual switch
and live storage migration which is a step up from Server 2008 R2’s Quick Storage Migration to
prevent downtime. It is also capable of migrating virtual machines (VMs) without shared
storage.
SMB 3.0: SMB 3.0 provides improved performance of SMB Direct (SMB over RDMA),
improved SMB event messages, helps Hyper-V live migration over SMB, and other new features
which makes it a robust feature in Server 2012 R2.
Difference between Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2012
Difference between Windows Server 2008 & Windows Server 2012
Below are the basic difference between windows Server 2008 and windows Server 2012
First we’ll discuss about the Hardware requirements and then we go through the Features
Hardware Specifications between these two
Processor/Memory Feature Windows Server 2012 Windows Server 2008 R
RAM per VM 1TB 64GB
Virtual processors/VM 64 4
# of Active VMs 1,024 384
Virtual processors/VMs 64 4
Virtual processors/hosts 2,048 512
Maximum cluster nodes 64 16
Maximum cluster VMs 8,000 1,000
Physical Memory 4TB 1TB
Features which are supported in Windows Server 2012 and that are Not supported by windows
server 2008 as shown below:
New Features
Private VLAN Supported Not Supported
DHCP Guard Supported Not Supported
Router Guard Supported Not Supported
Hyper-V Extensible Switch Supported Not Supported
Extension Monitoring Supported Not Supported
IP Address rewrite Supported Not Supported
Generic Routing Encapsulation Supported Not Supported
Non-Uniform Memory Access (NUMA) support inside
Supported Not Supported
VMs
Single Root I/O Virtualization (SR-IOV) Supported Not Supported
Hyper-V Smart Paging Supported Not Supported
Resource Metering Supported Not Supported
Runtime Memory Configuration Supported Not Supported
Virtual Hard Disk format Supported Not Supported
Offload Data Transfer Supported Not Supported
Data Center Bridging Supported Not Supported
Virtual Fibre Channel in Hyper-V Supported Not Supported
QoS Minimum Bandwidth Supported Not Supported
Encrypted cluster volumes Supported Not Supported
Cluster Shared Volume (CSV) 2.0 Supported Not Supported
Application Monitoring Supported Not Supported
Storage Spaces Supported Not Supported
Data Deduplication Supported Not Supported
SMB Direct Supported Not Supported
Multi-terabyte volumes Supported Not Supported
SMB Transparent failover Supported Not Supported
Datacenter Diskless boot Supported Not Supported
SMB 3.0 Supported Not Supported
IPAM Supported Not Supported
Cross-premise connectivity Supported Not Supported
DHCP Failover Supported Not Supported
CPU Throttling Supported Not Supported
Active Directory based Authentication Supported Not Supported
Cloning virtual domain controllers Supported Not Supported
DirectAccess Supported Not Supported
Hyper-V Replica Supported Not Supported
Live Storage migration Supported Not Supported
