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Hyper-V Replica is the feature that provides virtual machine replication for disaster recovery in Windows Server 2012. It enables you to create a copy of a virtual machine on a different host, allowing for protection against hardware failures, maintenance, or disasters. The primary virtual machine is replicated to a secondary site, which can be an entirely different physical location. This replication is asynchronous, meaning changes are sent to the replica after being made to the primary VM, ensuring that the replica remains up-to-date with minimal impact on performance.

Hyper-V Replica also supports various configurations, including the ability to configure replication schedules, allowing administrators to tailor the frequency of updates to align with their organization’s recovery point objectives (RPO). Additionally, it incorporates features such as the ability to test failover without disrupting operations, making it a vital tool for disaster recovery planning and implementation in a virtualized environment.

In contrast, options like Windows Server Backup and Distributed File System do not provide VM-level replication specifically for disaster recovery, and Network Load Balancing is focused on distributing network traffic rather than data replication.