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02 Windows Server 2012 R2 System Requirements

The document outlines the system requirements for upgrading to Windows Server 2012 R2, emphasizing the importance of evaluating hardware resources to maintain performance. Minimum requirements include a 1.4 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 32 GB disk, while recommended requirements suggest a 2 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM for production environments. Additional resources may be necessary based on specific server roles and applications, particularly in virtualized environments.

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18 views4 pages

02 Windows Server 2012 R2 System Requirements

The document outlines the system requirements for upgrading to Windows Server 2012 R2, emphasizing the importance of evaluating hardware resources to maintain performance. Minimum requirements include a 1.4 GHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and a 32 GB disk, while recommended requirements suggest a 2 GHz processor and 2 GB of RAM for production environments. Additional resources may be necessary based on specific server roles and applications, particularly in virtualized environments.

Uploaded by

remose06
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Essential Windows Server 2012

R2 system requirements
Before upgrading to Windows Server 2012 R2, read up on hardware
requirements to ensure there are enough resources to preserve
performance.






By

 Stephen J. Bigelow, Senior Technology Editor

Published: 30 Sep 2013

As operating systems evolve and become increasingly sophisticated,


demands on a server's computing resources also increase. So any software
upgrade cycle -- especially with critical enterprise operating systems -- must
include evaluating the server's hardware to ensure adequate resources that
preserve required performance levels.

Evaluation can uncover potential system resource shortages that can be


resolved with workload balancing, system upgrades, additional server
deployments or other strategies. This tip examines Microsoft Windows Server
2012 R2 requirements.

What are the minimum system requirements for Windows Server


2012 R2?
The minimum system requirements to support Windows Server 2012 R2 are
essentially the same as Windows Server 2012, and are considered light by
most standards. The stated Windows Server 2012 R2 requirements include a
single 1.4 GHz, 64-bit processor core, 512 MB of RAM, a 32 GB disk partition
and a standard Ethernet (10/100 Mbps or faster) network connection. The
server will also require access to an optical drive, along with access to a
keyboard, video and mouse.

Remember: These requirements are for a minimal OS deployment only -- a


system that is configured or provisioned to provide only these resources will
be unable to run any applications or virtual machines on top of the OS. This
means installing Windows Server 2012 R2 on a machine that meets minimum
requirements has little practical value, other than to give IT professionals
experience with installation techniques and familiarity with the user interface.

What are the recommended system requirements?


When moving from a simple test or evaluation deployment toward a practical
Windows Server 2012 R2 install, it's important to provide additional system
resources to meet the added requirements of the particular role and
application. Microsoft provides a set of recommended system requirements
beyond the minimum. IT professionals looking to run Windows Server 2012
R2 in production environments, or anywhere performance is important should
heed these recommendations.

Microsoft's recommended Windows Server 2012 R2 requirements include a


single 2 GHz, 64-bit processor core, 2 GB of RAM, a 40 GB disk partition and
a standard Ethernet (10/100 Mbps or faster) network connection. The server
will also require access to an optical drive, along with access to a keyboard,
video and mouse.

Remember again that these recommended system requirements still reflect


the resources needed to run just the operating system. Installing additional
software may require additional resources above the recommended system
requirements to run the operating system.

Requirements for Windows Server R2 roles


Windows Server 2012 R2 can provide an enormous number of services and
capabilities that specific server roles use -- but these might not be installed in
a minimum configuration. Organizations will need to allocate more memory,
disk space and processor capabilities, in addition to the minimum
requirements, depending on the new server's intended role.

Consider an application server role. The application server must provide a


suite of additional services, including Internet Information Services (IIS),
Microsoft .NET Framework, ASP.NET, COM+, Message Queuing and so on.
Each service will increase the amount of processor work, memory space and
storage the server requires.

A role like remote desktop services (RDS) involves numerous additional


services; RD virtualization host, RD session host, RD connection broker and
RD Web access must be installed with the server -- and each will impact
processor, memory and storage needs. If RemoteFX virtualized graphics
processing unit (GPU) is added to accelerate Windows client virtual desktops,
the server will require processors that support second-level address
translation (SLAT) and at least one GPU that supports RemoteFX and DirectX
11.

As another example, the Hyper-V role allows the server to support


virtualization and host multiple workloads simultaneously. This requires
additional memory and storage for Hyper-V components, processors with
hardware-assisted virtualization such as Intel-VT or AMD-V, along with
hardware-enforced data execution prevention invoked through the Intel
execute disable or AMD no execute (NX) bit in system BIOS. Although current
enterprise-class processors provide virtualization extensions in the processor,
it's still important to verify those capabilities before attempting a deployment.

Workload requirements
Computing requirements don't stop with the OS and its services. Additional
resources must be allocated to support the actual enterprise application such
as Microsoft BizTalk, Microsoft SQL or any number of enterprise resource
planning or customer relationship management platforms. Applications require
processor capacity, memory space, storage and network I/O beyond the
needs of the underlying operating system, so check a particular application's
requirements, and add those demands to the OS.

Workload and resource planning becomes even more complicated when the
Windows server is virtualized. During virtualization, computing demands of
each VM will multiply processor, memory, storage and networking
requirements.

Suppose a typical server OS and application require a processor core, 10 GB


of RAM and 50 GB of storage. Hosting 10 such virtual machines would need
approximately 10 times those resources on the server (about 10 processor
cores, 100 GB of RAM and 500 GB of storage). The exact amount of
resources will vary with server roles and individual application demands.

It is impractical to list specific system requirements for every possible


combination of server role and application. The best approach for resource
planning is to use systems management tools to benchmark the resource
usage of actual Windows Server 2012 R2 roles and applications to estimate
resource needs on another server. Benchmarking can also help IT pros
evaluate and optimize Microsoft Windows Server 2012 R2 performance.

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