Hyper V Licensing and instances.

[JoeF1]

Hi guys.

I'm looking for a bit of information please.

So i am wanting to move all my physical old servers onto our new hyper V server. I have used the software to do this etc and am comfortable in doing that.

The real question is how many licenses i need or what i am allowed to use within Hyper V.

So we have server 2012 which comes with 2 Hyper v licensing. Both installed and running, i get that. The question is, will i run into problems running these additional older 2003 servers? I understand i will need to re-license these because i only have OEM keys although we are looking to upgrade them to 2012 in the future too. Just need to get them off the failing physical server they are currently on. But do i need to buy more licensing within Hyper V or anything? Or can i have as many servers as i want on Hyper-V but will the assumption i have the correct licensing on the server 2003 itself?

Sorry if i sound confusing, im still learning it all myself.

 

[JoeF1]

Hi there,

If you're running MS Server 2012 Standard you get 2 licences to run Server 2012 on the same physical machine that 2k12std is installed on. If you are planning on virtualising some 2k3 machines on the same host then you will just need to re-activate with the same keys you were given for the original install. If you're planning on running lots of 2k12 virtual machines then it may pay to buy a datacenter edition of MS Server 2k12 r2. There's a break even point depending on how many virtual machines you'll be running.

Hope this helps
B

Thanks for getting back to me. You're correct, i am already using the 2k12 licensing and would like to put my physical 2003 servers on here so they can be put to rest. So i will use the existing keys. Thanks.