Get ready for Windows Server 2012

New multi-server capable Server Manager

Server Core will be the default installation

The GUI is now considered a feature which enables you to perform your initial server configuration using the GUI then remove it when you’re readily to move into production.

Storage pools enable you to group together individual disks

Thin provisioning and storage deduplication are provided out of the box

New support for continuously available file shares with SMB 2.2

Clusters support 63 nodes and 4000 VMs

Support for installing SQL Server databases on file shares

Hyper-V 3.0 in Windows Server 8 will support hosts with up to 160 logical CPUs and up to 2 TB RAM.

Hyper-V 3.0 VMs will support up to 32 virtual CPUs with up to 512 GB RAM per VM providing much greater scalability for your SQL Server virtual machines.

Live Migration in Hyper-V 3.0 supports multiple concurrent Live Migrations

Live Migration without the requirement for shared storage between the different virtualization hosts

Live Storage Migration enables you to move a virtual machine’s configuration, virtual hard disk and snapshot files to a new location without incurring any downtime for the VM.

Network virtualization enables multiple virtual networks on the same networking hardware

Hyper-V Replica  will provide support for built-in asynchronous replication of Hyper-V VMs

Built-in NIC Teaming works across multiple heterogonous vendor NICs