Domain Controller on Hyper-V Server

[Marsh]

Since I haven't seen this mention before.
How about 2 x Free Hyper-V ( core no GUI ) license server, manage by Windows 8.1, not using AD ( no HA cluster ), just replication between two simple hyper-v host.
BTW, free hyper-v core server have full functionality (HA) as the paid WS2012R2 hyper-v, except no GUI. You could find paid / free tools to manage the core version of hyper-v

 

[PigLover]

Since I haven't seen this mention before.
How about 2 x Free Hyper-V ( core no GUI ) license server, manage by Windows 8.1, not using AD ( no HA cluster ), just replication between two simple hyper-v host.
BTW, free hyper-v core server have full functionality (HA) as the paid WS2012R2 hyper-v, except no GUI. You could find paid / free tools to manage the core version of hyper-v

With Hyper-V (free or not) the advanced features (vm relocation/motion, replication, HA, cluster, etc) are all included in all versions. But most of them depend on having a trust relationship between hosts - and that trust relationship is only supported via Active Directory. Without AD most of the advanced features - while still technically supported - are non-functional.

 

[Marsh]

I would just use the replication feature between two hyper-v host without AD, the new version of hyper-v replication time interval is down to 30seconds.
If you could afford few minutes to 1 hour of downtime, replication without domain is easy to setup and less complexity.

If one wants to use HA and other advance features, one would purchase one copy window server license, use free hyper-v core for the rest of hosts.