Running Hyper-V on Nano in Windows Server 2016 TP3
In Windows Server 2016 we are delivering a new way to run Hyper-V - on Nano server.
This is a great way to deploy Hyper-V - as you get full Hyper-V functionality with only a 500MB disk footprint. To get up and running you can follow the directions here: https://aka.ms/nanoserver
I followed these directions - and as you can see it is quite easy to do. First I mounted the Windows Server 2016 TP3 CD image and ran the following commands:
The end results was a bootable Nano VHD that was ready to run Hyper-V. I used BCDEDIT to setup VHD boot on one of my servers, rebooted and was presented with this screen:
Logging in showed me the network details of the server - so I could then connect remotely to manage the server. Management is done using Hyper-V Manager and PowerShell. Finally, as well as being able to run all the Hyper-V management tools remotely - we are also including the Hyper-V PowerShell cmdlets on Nano server itself. This means you can connect to your Nano Hyper-V server with PowerShell Remoting and run your commands directly there.
Right now I have a 4 node Hyper-V cluster running on Nano Server - and it can do everything my deployments on full server can.
Cheers,
Ben