The real world of physical servers is connected. You are now skilled in replicating the real world and creating your own virtual machine world. In this chapter, you will learn how to connect the entities in the virtual world and link them with the real world as well. With a more technical description, we will discuss the networking components that enable communication among virtual machines on the same host or other hosts, and other entities on the physical network.

Windows Server 2012 introduced some major improvements and advancements in the operating system and Hyper-V networking attributes, and Windows Server 2012 R2 raised the bar a bit more. The older virtual network, which was sometimes referred to as a virtual switch, was succeeded by the Hyper-V Extensible Switch, referred to as a Hyper-V Virtual Switch. This runs as a layer 2 Ethernet switch in the Management OS. The new virtual switch is feature loaded, and helps with traffic offloading and load balancing...