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Bill H

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Server 2016 license

HI, i am building a new server with vmware, with 2 physical cpu's and i want to run 4 vm's running server 2016.

What would be the appropriate licensing i would need for this ?
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Kenza Cohen
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Bill H

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Kenza, yes, that would be MSRP cost exactly? I am using vmware only.
In the UK for standard it is about £700 per 2 cores
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How about US?
Insufficient information.

HI, i am building a new server with vmware, with 2 physical cpu's and i want to run 4 vm's running server 2016.

What would be the appropriate licensing i would need for this ?

You fail to mention how many cores you are running.

A single Server 2016 license (which is 8x 2-core packs (there is a SKU available that bundles 8 packs into a single license)) allows for the physical server to have UP TO 16 cores.  NO MORE.  Doesn't matter what you assign to the VMs - it's what the hardware physically has.

So if you want an answer, sum your cores, divide by 2, that's the number of 2-core packs you need per set of 2 VMs.  MINIMUM is 16 though.
US 2 core packs run about $110 each.
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So minimum is 16core?
Windows Server Standard running as a Hyper-V host only allows for _two_ Operating System Environments (OSEs) to run on that host. That covers up to 16 cores. If the server has 24 cores total then additional 2-core packs would be required for Windows Server Standard.

So, in this case, only two Server Standard licenses would be required plus the appropriate CALs.

Windows Server Datacenter allows for unlimted OSEs running on a single host running just the Hyper-V Role.

All Windows virtualization rights cover the host no matter what the underlying hypervisor is.

Cost varies by region. We Canadians pay about 15% to 20% more in US dollars for the same license purchased in the OSofA.
Two physical CPUs seems like a lot of CPU for only 4 VMs. What will the VMs be doing? Even one modest modern CPU can run 20-50 relatively standard VMs found in business environments (domain controllers, web server, file server, SQL Server, etc.)

For four Windows Server VMs, you need to license 32 cores or more, depending on how many physical cores you have. As it has been said, you license 16 cores or your total cores, whichever is greater, for the first two Windows Server Standard VMs. Repeat that same purchase for the VM 3-4. When you get to the 5th VM, you need to make the same purchase again. Eventually you have spent so much where the Microsoft option of Windows Server Datacenter with licensing for unlimited VMs becomes more cost effective.