MS Server Licensing

Spammeh · 29 Sep 2011 at 10:47

Hi All,

We currently have the MS Server Datacentre licensing which allows us to install as many copies of Windows Server as we want on our VMWare infrastructure.

The question is, does this licensing just cover the VMWare hypervisor, or if we were to set up xenserver, would our licensing cover that too?

Cheers all

[Darkend]Viper · 30 Sep 2011 at 07:52

I was under the impression that the license only covers you installing windows on Hyper-V not any other virtualisation platform. But i'm not 100% sure so will let someone chime in.

aspirin · 30 Sep 2011 at 13:37

Spammeh said:
Hi All,

We currently have the MS Server Datacentre licensing which allows us to install as many copies of Windows Server as we want on our VMWare infrastructure.

The question is, does this licensing just cover the VMWare hypervisor, or if we were to set up xenserver, would our licensing cover that too?

Cheers all

DC licences are locked to the CPU. For example, if you have 2 x 2 CPU VMware hosts this would require 4 x DC licences. You can then install unlimited MS OS's on these 2 VMware hosts. You would need to apply the same rules to Xen depending on the CPU count. I hope this helps.

Spammeh · 30 Sep 2011 at 16:03

Spot on, thanks aspirin

#Chri5# · 30 Sep 2011 at 16:06

Don't forget Datacentre has a minimum purchase requirement of two physical CPUs per server.

aspirin · 30 Sep 2011 at 20:39

Yes, that is correct.
This is a really good guide:
http://download.microsoft.com/downl...and Forefront Pricing and Licensing Guide.pdf

MS still have the stupid "you must licence each virtual host to the maximum OS limit that may occur at any time" nonsense. This is my paraphrasing but it encompasses the rubbish MS state in the licencing guide. This forces everyone to DC licences. Time to grow up methinks. I'm going to a Gold Partner meet next month to let off steam