Working with NIC Teaming in Windows Server 2012

Of the many networking features introduced in Hyper-V 3.0 on Windows Server 2012, several were added to enhance the overall capability for networking virtual machines (VMs). One of the features introduced in Hyper-V 3.0 is a collection of components for configuring NIC teaming on virtual machines and the Windows operating system.

Originally designed for Windows Server 2012, NIC Teaming can also be used to configure teamed adapters for Hyper-V virtual machines. Since our primary focus in this article is to provide an overview of NIC Teaming in Windows Server 2012 and later versions, we will not cover in detail the steps needed to configure NIC Teaming for operating systems and virtual machines.

In earlier versions of Hyper-V (version 1.0 and version 2.0), the Windows operating system did not provide any utility to configure NIC Teaming for physical network adapters, and it was not possible to configure NIC teaming for virtual machines. A Windows administrator could configure NIC teaming on Windows by using third-party utilities but with the following disadvantages:

• Support was provided by the vendor and not by Microsoft.
• You could only configure NIC Teaming between physical network adapters of the same manufacturer.
• There are also separate management UIs for managing each third-party network teaming if you have configured more than one teaming.
• Most of the third-party teaming solutions do not have options for configuring teaming options remotely.
  

Starting with Hyper-V version 3.0 on Windows Server 2012, you can easily configure NIC Teaming for Virtual Machines.