Adding Hyper-V/RemoteFX vGPU support to an installed server

Question

I'm looking for advice from the community and/or MS support folks:
I have a Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials server installed on hardware (that supports the required VT-d, SLAT, etc features) running & stable in a single-server environment.  Now I'd need to add support for hosting Hyper-V virtual machines on the
server.
Server 2012 apparently does not allow installing Hyper-V server directly onto the server when the server is the PDC.  There seems to be two primary ways to slice this server into virtualized units.
1) Implement a hyper-visor 'under' the existing OS:
My understanding is that the my R2 Essentials license allows me to create two instances of the server, one virtualization host and one client running on the host.  Originally I attempted to set up the server this way, but the process was non-trivial
to say the least - apparently this is really only enabled for OEMs and end-users are left to struggle with creating a custom install image.  I gave up on that due to time & technical limitations.
Is there a way of performing a 'P2V' operation on the server and installing a Hyper-V hypervisor underneath the server OS without perturbing it's running environment too much?  My guess is that hardware changes detected by the guest (server) OS will
put my storage array at risk, and I need to avoid that at all costs; are there ways to mitigate the risks?
2) Leave the existing server as-is (not virtualized), install Hyper-V, install a 2nd copy of Server 12R2E into a VM, migrate the PDC into the VM:
Will this allow the server to host RemoteFX sessions now that it's not the PDC?
Will I encounter licensing issues when taking this path?
3) Are people having better luck using ESXi, XEN, etc to bypass the server limitations?
Thanks in advance,
3Dad

Answer 1

Hi 3Dad,
To install hyper-v role with Server 2012 R2 Essentials server, I recommend you can install a Hyper-v Host and migrate the Server 2012 R2 Essentials server to vm in Hyper-v.
I think you can configure RemoteFX for Hyper-V now without Active Directory Domain Controller installed:
Hyper-V: Avoid Installing RemoteFX on a Computer that is Configured
as an Active
Directory Domain Controller
I also find a similar disscussion about the method 1 you posted is for your reference:
Windows Server 2012 R2 ESSENTIALS: Virtualization How-To, Physical Hyper-V Host and Virtual Server (VM)
If there is anything else regarding this issue, please feel free to post back.
Best Regards,
Anna Wang
TechNet Community Support
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