At the heart of the Microsoft Cloud OS vision, Windows Server 2012 R2 brings Microsoft's experience delivering global-scale cloud services into your infrastructure. Windows Server 2012 R2 offers exciting features and enhancements across virtualization, storage, networking, virtual desktop infrastructure, access and information protection, and more.

Windows Server powers many of the worlds' largest datacentres, enables small businesses around the world, and delivers value to organizations of all sizes in between. Building on this legacy, Windows Server 2012 redefines the category, delivering hundreds of new features and enhancements spanning virtualization, networking, storage, user experience, cloud computing, automation, and more. Simply put, Windows Server 2012 helps you transform your IT operations to reduce costs and deliver a whole new level of business value. Both Standard and Datacentre editions provide the same set of features; the only thing that differentiates the editions is the number of Virtual Machines (VMs). A Standard edition license will entitle you to run up to two VMs on up to two processors (subject to the VM use rights outlined in the Product Use Rights document). A Datacentre edition license will entitle you to run an unlimited number of VMs on up to two processors. All features that are available in the Datacentre edition are also available in the Standard edition, including high availability features like failover clustering. The only difference between the two editions will be virtualization rights.

Features

Identity and Security
Windows Server 2012 makes it easier for administrators to configure, manage, and monitor users, resources, and devices to ensure proper security and access
Networking
Windows Server 2012 provides an array of new and enhanced features that help reduce networking complexity while facilitating more efficient and cost-effective networking management
Remote Access
Windows Server 2012 offers several ways to provide more efficient, secure, remote access to applications, data, or even an entire desktop environment
Server Management
Windows Server 2012 can offer excellent total cost of ownership as an integrated platform with comprehensive, multiserver manageability
Server Virtualization
With Hyper-V in Windows Server 2012, it is easier than ever for organizations to gain cost savings from virtualization
Storage and Availability
Windows Server 2012 can help you manage the balance between delivering capacity on demand while managing operational overhead and controlling capital expenditures
Web and Application Platform
Windows Server 2012 provides enormous flexibility for hosting web-based applications on-premises and in the cloud

Product Features

Enterprise-Class

Enhanced features allow you to take advantage of even better performance and more efficient capacity utilization in your datacenter, helping you increase the agility of your business. Windows Server 2012 R2 offers a proven, enterprise-class virtualization and cloud platform that can scale to continuously run your largest workloads while enabling robust recovery options to protect against service outages.

Simple And Cost-Effective

Windows Server 2012 R2 also gives you resilient, multi-tenant-aware storage and networking capabilities for a wide range of workloads. It delivers these capabilities at a fraction of the cost of other solutions, through the use of low-cost, industry-standard hardware. With automation of a broad set of management tasks built-in, Windows Server 2012 R2 simplifies the deployment of major workloads and increases operational efficiencies.

Application Focused

Windows Server 2012 R2 helps you build, deploy and scale applications and web sites quickly, and with more flexibility than ever before. In concert with Windows Azure VM and System Center 2012 R2, it unlocks improved application portability between on-premises environments and public and service provider clouds, increasing flexibility and elasticity of your IT services. Windows Server 2012 R2 provides a scalable, highly available platform for mission-critical applications and offers enhanced support for open standards, open source applications and various development languages.

User-Centric

Windows Server 2012 R2 makes it easier to deploy a virtual desktop infrastructure, and can lower storage costs significantly by supporting a broad range of storage options and VHD de-duplication. Virtual Desktop Infrastructure in Windows Server 2012 R2 makes it possible for users to access IT from virtually anywhere, providing them a rich Windows experience while ensuring enhanced data security and compliance. Windows Server 2012 R2 enables you to provide access to corporate resources and helps protect critical business information. With Windows Server 2012 R2, you can manage identities across your datacenter and federated into the cloud, provide flexible remote access to applications and resources, and define the resources and level of access users have to information based on who they are, what they are accessing, and what device they are using.