We tested the Windows Server 2012 Editions and Windows 8 Professional/Enterprise Editions on a Gigabit Ethernet switched network, principally using an HP DL580G8 with four 2.17Ghz quad-core Intel Xeon CPUs, 64GB of memory, and four high-speed local drives. We also used an NFS store for developing ISO images, then used VHD and VMDX images to build Windows 2012 and experimented with Windows 8 images. We also tested Windows Server 2012 on VMware vSphere 5.1, and Citrix XenServer 5.6, where we found no difficulties in mounting and managing Windows Server VMs. We tested features, spawned new virtual machines, configured routing and (tiny) VLANs to emulate environmental multi-tenancy successfully.
We tested Windows 8 Professional/Enterprise on Lenovo T520s (quad core Intel I5 chipset; 8GB of memory, 500GB Hitachi conventional IDE drives) and also replaced the internal Hitachi drives with SSDs containing Windows 7 stock images for upgrade testing. We also tested on several VM hypervisors, as well as Gateway and HP desktops.
We connected the Windows 8 machines and used both upgraded software, and new installations of applications such as Microsoft Office 2010. We virtualized Windows 8 on Hyper-V V3, Virtual Box (occasional trouble), Parallels for Mac 7 (and Parallels for Mac Server 4), and VMware ESXi 5. We used WindowsToGo on 16GB Lexar USB Flash Drives, and on two small Intel 120GB SSD drives, both successfully. It was one of the more drama-less reviews we've done in a while.
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