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goprasad

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SQL 2008 licensing in VM Ware

Hello:
I would like to know if the following is correct regarding licensing of SQL 2008 in VM:
(VMWare)
If we have a physical SQL box licensed for 2 x processors, quadcore and would like to move to VM. Microsoft says that in VM, each core is considered as a processor and should be licensed for it, in above case it will be 8 cores, therefore we should have license for 8 cores to move it to a VM?

My understanding was that if we build a VM with a single processor, you license for that processor, not the number of cores.

We are looking at upgrading SQL 2005 to SQL 2008 and therefore interested in understanding what MS advise specific to SQL 2008 licensing in VMWare.

Please help.



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cyberkiwi
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Number of "processors" = number of physical processors.
So if you assign 4 cores to the VM from a 2 x quad machine, you can assume they are all from 1 processor and get a single per(1x)-processor license.
Take a look at http://www.dabcc.com/article.aspx?id=1546. This article does an excellent job of explaining your options.

Good Luck
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cyberkiwi
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Figure 7 shows a SQL Server setup with 2 cores, counting as 1 "CPU"
Hence my first comment, 4 cores = 1 CPU in a dual socket quad core setup.
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goprasad

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We won't be going for SQL 2008 R2  
But do you know of any Microsoft doco or URl which explains about SQL 2008 server licensing in VMWare
The document linked above is published October 2008, which relates to the entire 2008 suite of products, including SQL Server 2008.