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