Windows Server Licensing in Environments with Windows VMs

There are Standard and Data Center Editions. Finally, we need to get a clear understanding of the concept of virtualization rights. Windows Server R2 is a great operating system! The standard edition of the operating system is so powerful that it can support any operations, for any business, of any size. It can literally do anything you can think of that a Windows Server would do. There are no limitations. Standard edition was built to handle that kind of workload. If Standard edition is so amazing then why would I want to pay 5 times the price to buy Datacenter Edition?

Virtualization rights! Today when you purchase a licensed copy of Windows Server R2 Standard or Datacenter Editions you get virtualization rights with the purchase.

They are clear that this operating system will be installed using the principles of cloud-based network infrastructure design. This means that if you are installing Windows Server R2 on a physical box you are probably using it as a host machine for Hyper-V to run your virtual machines in your network. Those free virtual machines licenses are called the virtualization rights. This is where the reasoning for Datacenter comes into play. With Standard edition, you got 2 virtualization rights but with Windows Server R2 Data Center edition you get unlimited virtualization rights.

In this case, unlimited means as many virtual machines as your hardware platform can support. Why would anyone buy Standard edition with its 2 virtualization rights when you could buy Data Center edition and get unlimited rights? The general rule of thumb is that if you are running more than 10 VMs and have an advanced hardware platform read datacenter then the datacenter edition will be a more cost-effective choice.

If not then you probably want Standard one. Microsoft has built this stand-alone version of Hyper-V that truly does stand alone in that it does not come with the full version of Windows Server R2 operating system. Really Cool! I really want the benefits of running Hyper-V in its R2 version. I could download and install it as the platform for my already licensed servers. Now if you choose to add new VMs running WS R2 you will need to purchase licenses at which time you would get virtualization rights and would at that time have to decide whether you wanted to continue with Hyper-V server or simply move to Hyper-V on Windows Server R2.

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Windows server 2012 r2 standard virtualization licensing free

If you use virtualization on your physical server with Windows Server , you can use the host OS only to maintain and manage the Hyper-V role and virtual machines. You cannot install Windows Server on a physical server, run two VMs on it and get three full-fledged Windows server instances for your tasks. Software Assurance SA provides the right to transfer the product license between physical hosts for most Microsoft server products. But Windows Server is an exception to this rule.

According to the licensing agreement, the license can be migrated between the hosts once in 90 days. How to license a virtualization farm, in which VMs can move between hypervisors host OSs? In this scenario, you will have to buy that number of licenses for each physical server covering the maximum number of virtual machines that can be run on it at any time including the high availability scenarios when all virtual machines of the farm are moved to the one of the hosts.

In the case of the Datacenter edition, one set of licenses will be sufficient for each physical host, covering all cores in the minimum configuration, 8 Datacenter dual-core licenses. Since this license allows you to run an unlimited number of VMs. Therefore, you should choose the Windows Server license depending on the maximum number of VMs on a single host.

Below are some examples of calculating Windows Server licenses for physical hosts when using virtualization. Example 1. There is a Hyper-V cluster of 5 hosts. Each server has 2 processors with 20 cores. Each will run 10 virtual machines. Because 5 servers are united into HA Hyper-V cluster, which means that up to 50 virtual machines can be running potentially on each host during VM migration failover.

Accordingly, it is more profitable to purchase the Datacenter licenses. Example 2. The branch office has 1 server with 2 sockets with 4 cores each, on which 4 virtual machines are running. How many Windows Server licenses do I need to purchase?

The server has 8 cores. Under the terms of licensing — you need to cover at least 16 cores. This will allow you to run 2 VMs. To run additional 2 VMs, you need to buy another set of core licenses. So if i have one VM in cluster of two nodes and fail happens VM migrates from first node to second host node. Do i need call MS and activate it with key from second node? How long will be grace period for VM on second node? The virtual machine must be activated only once.

When VM migrate to another host in cluster reactivation is not required. Windows Server restricted the maximum number of processors to 64, both for Standard and Datcenter editions.

Check the BIOS settings. If your server is virtual — check virtual hardware configuration. We are using Proxmox KWM installed on three server dual core. We have two phisicals server with one Windows R2 standard and one phisical server with Windows R2 standard.

May you help me about license? Microsoft Support have not helped me. Thanks for support. Is that right? One Standard license covers two virtual machines. If you need to run 4 VMs on a physical server that has two 8-core processors, you must buy 16 dual-core Standard licenses for Windows Server Two license sets cover all cores twice and allow you to run 4 VMs.

If you need to run an odd number of VMs on a host, you need to buy licenses for the next even number of VMs. If you need to run 4 VMs on the same physical server that has two 8-core processors but with the Windows Server Datacenter license, you need to buy 8 dual-core Datacenter licenses for Windows Server VM licensing order: Physical cores must be licensed first and only after that virtual machines must be licensed.

Taking into account the current price for Windows Server licenses, it may be better to buy Windows Server Standard licenses if you are going to run up to 12 virtual machines on a single physical server. If you need to run 14 VMs or more, the more rational decision is to buy Windows Server Datacenter.

VM migration is especially needed if you run VMs in a cluster. In this case you need to buy the number of licenses to cover all VMs on all hosts for each physical server as if you are migrating all VMs from all hosts to one host.

In this case, each VM is licensed to migrate to any host. You can migrate a Windows Server license between physical servers once every 90 days. The Hyper-V virtual machine activation binds to the activated instance of Windows Server installed on a physical server that acts as a hypervisor.

Virtual machines can be activated without an internet connection. There is no need to manage product keys for VMs. Activation is preserved if licensed VMs are migrated between licensed hosts. We have two physical servers. Each server has one 6-core processor. Two VMs must run on each server. Windows Server Standard license can be used. We need to buy 8 dual-core licenses for each server because it is not possible to buy less than 8 double-core licenses to license a physical server even if there are less than 16 cores.

Note: VMs used in examples are running Windows Server of the edition mentioned in the corresponding example. Each server has one core processor. Four VMs must run on each server, and Windows Server Standard is installed on each physical server. We have to buy 16 double-core licenses or two core licenses for each server. In total, we buy four core licenses for the whole Windows Server environment. The configuration is the same as in Example 2. Each server has 4 VMs and these VMs must be able to migrate between servers.

As a result, we need to buy an additional 16 double-core licenses for each server. Finally, each server has 32 double-core licenses or four core licenses.

As a result, four additional core licenses must be bought for each physical server. Totally the equivalent of 80 cores must be covered on each server and there must be 40 double-core licenses or 5×16 core licenses for each server.

There are three servers. The first server has two processors and each processor has 20 cores. The second server has one core processor. The third server has one core processor. VMs running Windows virtual servers need to be migrated between hosts.

Windows Server Datacenter is used in this case and, as such, we need to take into account the terms of Microsoft datacenter licensing. First of all, we must buy licenses for the server cores. Server 1. A total of 40 cores must be licensed 20×2.

The base core license covers 16 cores. We need to license 24 cores in addition to that and buy one more core license and two 4-core licenses. You can simply buy 20 double-core licenses. Server 2. You need to buy a base core license and one double-core license or just buy 9 double-core licenses. Server 3. You need to buy two core licenses or 16 double-core licenses. Each server must be licensed to run the total number of VMs in the server group or cluster.

The number 63 is odd, and we have to use the even number of 64 VMs. Each server must be licensed to run 64 VMs. As we use a licensed Windows Server Datacenter on each physical server, which allows us to run an unlimited number of VMs, no additional licensing is required after we have licensed all the CPU cores on each server. Running VMs in a cluster makes your virtual environment more reliable, provides load balancing and high availability for virtual machines.

The product automatically detects the host on which a VM is running and makes the VM backup.