asked on Help with Windows Server Licensing and Virtual Machines
Hello everyone.
This is ...embarassing to say the least, but I could really use a hand here.
We have one VMware ESXi virtual host with 2 x Intel Xeon e5-2673 v4 CPUs.
From my understanding, both of these CPUs have 20-cores each.
The VMware ESXi virtual host is licensed properly, so we're good there.
I need help with Windows Server licensing.
I'll give you guys the current setup, and hopefully someone here can help.
Current VMs on the virtual host:
- 1 x legacy Windows XP (assigned 1 vCPU)
- 1 x legacy SCO OpenServer 5 (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x VMware vCenter Server Virtual Appliance (assigned 2 vCPUs)
- 1 x ESET Server Virtual Appliance (CentOS 7) (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x File Server vm running Windows Server 2019 Standard (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x legacy Windows 7 (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x Database Server running Windows Server 2012 (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x Windows 10 Pro (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x Virtual Domain Controller running Windows Server 2019 (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x Windows Server 2019 (assigned 4 vCPUs)
- 1 x legacy Windows Server 2000 (assigned 2 vCPUs)
I foolishly thought Microsoft allowed 1 Windows Server 2019 license to be used on 2 virtual machines. I'm thinking that is now inaccurate, but it's very difficult to get clear, concise licensing instructions.
If you need additional details, please just ask.
For now, let's just make believe that this was a brand new deployment and that we had NO Windows Server licenses at all. Ignore Windows Server CALs for the time being. I want to focus on the actual Windows Server licenses.
Thanks in advance!
Windows OSVMware
Last Comment
homerslmpson
Yes, one Windows Server Standard license allows 2 VMs on one host. However, it's licensed PER CORE. A standard license comes with 16 cores. If you have 2x20 cores, you would need 24 additional cores. Microsoft sells "two-core packs" so you would need 12 more two core packs (technically, a second standard license and 4 two-core packs should cover you).
ASKER
Thank you.
What about the actual Windows Server licensing on the individual VMs?
Would each VM running Windows Server (2012, 2019, etc) require their own individual Windows Server licenses with product keys and activation, etc?
Or are the Windows Server 40-core licenses somehow blanketing all VMs on the host?
What about the actual Windows Server licensing on the individual VMs?
Would each VM running Windows Server (2012, 2019, etc) require their own individual Windows Server licenses with product keys and activation, etc?
Or are the Windows Server 40-core licenses somehow blanketing all VMs on the host?
I counted 5 Windows Server VMs that need licensed. May I suggest that you have WAY TOO MUCH CPU in the host for your workloads.
For example, I am looking at one of my hosts with dual Xeon E5-2667 v3 CPU. I 16 cores total. I am running 55 VMs on the host. I am running at maybe 35-40% of host CPU.
If you pull out one of your CPUs, you cut the Microsoft Windows Server licensing in half.
As it stands now, you need to license 40 cores x 3 = 120 cores for up to 6 VMs. This is 7.5x the price of a single Windows Server 16 core license.
Most of your VMs have too many vCPU assigned. Windows VMs should have 1 or 2 vCPU assigned unless proven that they need more. The only reason why I assign 2 vCPU to Windows VMs is for speeding up Windows Updates.
Your Windows desktop OS have their own licensing challenges. They need VDA or Windows 10 Enterprise licenses I believe.
For example, I am looking at one of my hosts with dual Xeon E5-2667 v3 CPU. I 16 cores total. I am running 55 VMs on the host. I am running at maybe 35-40% of host CPU.
If you pull out one of your CPUs, you cut the Microsoft Windows Server licensing in half.
As it stands now, you need to license 40 cores x 3 = 120 cores for up to 6 VMs. This is 7.5x the price of a single Windows Server 16 core license.
Most of your VMs have too many vCPU assigned. Windows VMs should have 1 or 2 vCPU assigned unless proven that they need more. The only reason why I assign 2 vCPU to Windows VMs is for speeding up Windows Updates.
Your Windows desktop OS have their own licensing challenges. They need VDA or Windows 10 Enterprise licenses I believe.
Licensing the 40 cores for Windows Server licenses the first 2 Windows Server 20xx VMs on the host. If you want to add another Windows 20XX Server VM to the host, then you need to license another 40 cores for the next two VMs.
Each VM must be fully licensed for 40 cores because you can easily increase cores to the VMs at any time.
I agree with Kevin, it seems you bought way too much hardware for your needs (unless you have significant plans to expand the number of VMs).
Microsoft switched to per-core licensing in 2016 so if you have appropriate licenses for your Windows 2012 and 2000 servers right now, you should have any issues with them.
If you buy Windows Server Enterprise for 40 Cores you can have as many Windows VMs as you like, but that will cost you over 5 figures in licensing charges.
I agree with Kevin, it seems you bought way too much hardware for your needs (unless you have significant plans to expand the number of VMs).
Microsoft switched to per-core licensing in 2016 so if you have appropriate licenses for your Windows 2012 and 2000 servers right now, you should have any issues with them.
If you buy Windows Server Enterprise for 40 Cores you can have as many Windows VMs as you like, but that will cost you over 5 figures in licensing charges.
ASKER
My goodness gracious why is this so complicated?
I'm wondering if I should just dump the virtual host and get individual mini servers for each required instance.
Let's take a step back here.
First, thank you for mentioning that it appears I'm underutilizing the CPUs on this virtual host.
I thought we'd run into an issue if we assigned more CPUs than we have cores (ex: one 20-core CPU would allow 20 x 1-CPU VMs).
I can definitely reduce the number of vCPUs to 1 on each of these machines and increase the number from there on a case by case basis. I'm assuming this isn't going to change any of the licensing requirements though.
Now, you did mention possibly removing one of the physical CPUs in order to reduce the number of required licenses by half, and that certainly sounds promising.
Let's say I removed or disabled a physical CPU, so now we have a single 20-core CPU on this host.
Let's also say that we exclude any VMs that aren't running Windows Server 20xx.
So now we have:
How does this change my licensing requirements?
I'm wondering if I should just dump the virtual host and get individual mini servers for each required instance.
Let's take a step back here.
First, thank you for mentioning that it appears I'm underutilizing the CPUs on this virtual host.
I thought we'd run into an issue if we assigned more CPUs than we have cores (ex: one 20-core CPU would allow 20 x 1-CPU VMs).
I can definitely reduce the number of vCPUs to 1 on each of these machines and increase the number from there on a case by case basis. I'm assuming this isn't going to change any of the licensing requirements though.
Now, you did mention possibly removing one of the physical CPUs in order to reduce the number of required licenses by half, and that certainly sounds promising.
Let's say I removed or disabled a physical CPU, so now we have a single 20-core CPU on this host.
Let's also say that we exclude any VMs that aren't running Windows Server 20xx.
So now we have:
- 1 x File Server vm running Windows Server 2019 Standard (hypothetically now assigned 1 vCPU)
- 1 x Database Server running Windows Server 2012 (hypothetically now assigned 1 vCPU )
- 1 x Virtual Domain Controller running Windows Server 2019 (hypothetically now assigned 1 vCPU )
- 1 x Windows Server 2019 (hypothetically now assigned 1 vCPU )
- 1 x legacy Windows Server 2000 (hypothetically now assigned 1 vCPU )
How does this change my licensing requirements?
I agree with what others have said on here.
For every 2 VM's you will need to license 40 cores.
So if you have 5 servers you would need to 3 sets of license for a total of 120 core license. (you cant buy half a license)
That said I do not agree with the "To much hardware" statement as we don't know what load your VM's actually have on them. It may be that you sized it fine.
For every 2 VM's you will need to license 40 cores.
So if you have 5 servers you would need to 3 sets of license for a total of 120 core license. (you cant buy half a license)
That said I do not agree with the "To much hardware" statement as we don't know what load your VM's actually have on them. It may be that you sized it fine.
If you remove one of the processors then you could cut that number down to 60 cores. But obviously that may impact performance of your server.
It is licensed based on the physical cores in the server (not the number of VCPU assigned).
It is licensed based on the physical cores in the server (not the number of VCPU assigned).
If you pulled out a physical CPU, then your server is now a 20 core server. You now need 20 cores licenses for every 2 Windows Server VMs. You cut the licensing costs in half for Windows Server.
ASKER
Ok so let's say I remove a physical CPU and I drop each VM down to 1 vCPU.
5 virtual machines.
1 x 20-core CPU
Let's change the 5 virtual machines to 6 in order to keep the numbers even.
So, 6 virtual machines on a single 20-core CPU would require a total of 60 core licenses.
Let's say we purchase 4 x Windows Server 2019 Standard 16-core licenses.
This would put the total core count to 64, right?
Are we all in agreement here that this would be compliant so far? <-- I'd like at least one participant to chime in here.
Now, if we have 64 Windows Server 2019 core licenses and we have 3 x Server 2019 VMs, 1 x Server 2012 R2 VM, and 1 x Server 2000 VM, is everything covered? Plus we would have "room" for 1 more VM, right? <-- I'd like at least one participant to chime in here as well.
Thanks guys.
5 virtual machines.
1 x 20-core CPU
Let's change the 5 virtual machines to 6 in order to keep the numbers even.
So, 6 virtual machines on a single 20-core CPU would require a total of 60 core licenses.
Let's say we purchase 4 x Windows Server 2019 Standard 16-core licenses.
This would put the total core count to 64, right?
Are we all in agreement here that this would be compliant so far? <-- I'd like at least one participant to chime in here.
Now, if we have 64 Windows Server 2019 core licenses and we have 3 x Server 2019 VMs, 1 x Server 2012 R2 VM, and 1 x Server 2000 VM, is everything covered? Plus we would have "room" for 1 more VM, right? <-- I'd like at least one participant to chime in here as well.
Thanks guys.
If you bought 4 x 16 core Windows 2022 licenses, you would be licensed for 6 Windows Server Standard VMs on the host. Buy from a proper reseller, and they will get you the add on packs so you are not buying an extra 4 cores.
Do not buy Windows 2019. Buy Windows 2022. Same price, but you get access to the latest version, and that will be in support for about 9.5 years. You then get downgrade rights to all earlier versions of Windows Server XXXX Standard.
Do not buy Windows 2019. Buy Windows 2022. Same price, but you get access to the latest version, and that will be in support for about 9.5 years. You then get downgrade rights to all earlier versions of Windows Server XXXX Standard.
ASKER
OK, now we are making some progress.
Based on what I'm reading here, it sounds like all of this "core" stuff has to do with Windows Server 2016 and up.
Any existing VMs with regular Server 2012 (and lower) product keys are good to go.
It looks like we already purchased 2 x 16 core Windows Server 2019 licenses in July of 2020.
@kevinhsieh - you mentioned "If you bought 4 x 16 core Windows 2022 licenses, you would be licensed for 6 Windows Server Standard VMs on the host."
If we already purchased 2 x Windows Server 2019 Standard 16 core licenses back in July of 2020 and only have 3 total VMs running Windows Server 2019 on this virtual host, does that mean we only need to purchase one more Server 2022/2019 16 core license to be compliant in this regard?
Based on what I'm reading here, it sounds like all of this "core" stuff has to do with Windows Server 2016 and up.
Any existing VMs with regular Server 2012 (and lower) product keys are good to go.
It looks like we already purchased 2 x 16 core Windows Server 2019 licenses in July of 2020.
@kevinhsieh - you mentioned "If you bought 4 x 16 core Windows 2022 licenses, you would be licensed for 6 Windows Server Standard VMs on the host."
If we already purchased 2 x Windows Server 2019 Standard 16 core licenses back in July of 2020 and only have 3 total VMs running Windows Server 2019 on this virtual host, does that mean we only need to purchase one more Server 2022/2019 16 core license to be compliant in this regard?
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You have 40 cores. Why would you purchase 48?
ASKER
My honest answer to your question, Lee, is that I generally buy my licenses from MyChoiceSoftware.
Their pricing is currently as follows:
Based on the licensing we've already purchased, I think it would be more cost-effective to purchase as many 16-core Server 2019 licenses as required to make us compliant; even if that puts us over.
At $150 per 2-core license (for 2022), we'd have to buy 4 of these (8-cores in total which will bring us to 40-cores), which is $600.
At this point we'd be able to get a 16-core Server 2022 license for the same price.
However, seeing as we don't have any need for Windows Server 2022 VMs at the moment, it seems more cost effecting to stick with an additional Server 2019 (16-core) license for $470.
Plus, as Robert mentioned, we'd be able to create another Server 2019 VM if/when needed.
Now that I'm a bit more fluent in the core licensing structure, we may go in a different direction when it's time to move from Windows Server 20212 R2.
Their pricing is currently as follows:
- $470 for a 16-core Server 2019 license.
- $600 for a 16-core Server 2022 license.
- $150 for a 2-core Server 2022 license.
Based on the licensing we've already purchased, I think it would be more cost-effective to purchase as many 16-core Server 2019 licenses as required to make us compliant; even if that puts us over.
At $150 per 2-core license (for 2022), we'd have to buy 4 of these (8-cores in total which will bring us to 40-cores), which is $600.
At this point we'd be able to get a 16-core Server 2022 license for the same price.
However, seeing as we don't have any need for Windows Server 2022 VMs at the moment, it seems more cost effecting to stick with an additional Server 2019 (16-core) license for $470.
Plus, as Robert mentioned, we'd be able to create another Server 2019 VM if/when needed.
Now that I'm a bit more fluent in the core licensing structure, we may go in a different direction when it's time to move from Windows Server 20212 R2.
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ASKER
What's odd is that now that I looked at the virtual host again, it doesn't have the CPU mentioned in the original post.
It apparently has 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 CPUs which VMware is stating is a 12-core processor; not a 20-core processor.
I'm honestly not sure where I got the original CPU from. Very odd...
So, seeing as it's only a 12-core CPU, it should be treated as a 16-core CPU. There are 2 CPUs installed currently, so that means that if I want to keep them both installed, I'll need 2 additional 16-core Server 2019 licenses (ie: if I have 4 x VMs on this host running Server 2016 or higher, I'll need 4 x 16-core licenses).
And if I want to remove a physical CPU, that drops the requirements to 1 x 16-core Server 2019 license per 2 VMs.
So strange. Why the heck did I think this virtual host had 2 x Xeon E5-2673 v4 CPUs?
It looks like I won't need any 2-core licenses in this case. It's just a matter of either removing a CPU to cut the licensing requirements in 1/2, or leaving the 2nd CPU installed and purchasing 2 more Server 2019 16-core licenses.
Regarding MyChoiceSoftware; I'll definitely keep this in mind for future licensing needs.
It apparently has 2 x Intel Xeon E5-2680 v3 CPUs which VMware is stating is a 12-core processor; not a 20-core processor.
I'm honestly not sure where I got the original CPU from. Very odd...
So, seeing as it's only a 12-core CPU, it should be treated as a 16-core CPU. There are 2 CPUs installed currently, so that means that if I want to keep them both installed, I'll need 2 additional 16-core Server 2019 licenses (ie: if I have 4 x VMs on this host running Server 2016 or higher, I'll need 4 x 16-core licenses).
And if I want to remove a physical CPU, that drops the requirements to 1 x 16-core Server 2019 license per 2 VMs.
So strange. Why the heck did I think this virtual host had 2 x Xeon E5-2673 v4 CPUs?
It looks like I won't need any 2-core licenses in this case. It's just a matter of either removing a CPU to cut the licensing requirements in 1/2, or leaving the 2nd CPU installed and purchasing 2 more Server 2019 16-core licenses.
Regarding MyChoiceSoftware; I'll definitely keep this in mind for future licensing needs.
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ASKER
I appreciate that! Thanks! I didn't realize the 16 core minimum is per chassis/server.
We've never purchased Software Assurance, just as we've never upgraded to the latest and greatest OS as they are released.
There's a pretty good chance that we WILL actually skip Server 2022.
We have purchased some MS Open License products here and there, but for the most part, we've been sticking with the OEM licenses via sites like MyChoiceSoftware and even eBay (although we don't use eBay anymore, but for a while we did).
Moving forward, I'll definitely consider getting our licenses through a reseller via MS Open License or whatever they call it now.
It's hard to justify the increased cost (especially over the last 2 years), but I definitely see the benefits in doing so.
We've never purchased Software Assurance, just as we've never upgraded to the latest and greatest OS as they are released.
There's a pretty good chance that we WILL actually skip Server 2022.
We have purchased some MS Open License products here and there, but for the most part, we've been sticking with the OEM licenses via sites like MyChoiceSoftware and even eBay (although we don't use eBay anymore, but for a while we did).
Moving forward, I'll definitely consider getting our licenses through a reseller via MS Open License or whatever they call it now.
It's hard to justify the increased cost (especially over the last 2 years), but I definitely see the benefits in doing so.