Window Server Licencing Changes

CaptainComedy

CaptainComedy

CaptainComedy

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I work for IT in the NHS and I have been told of some licence pricing changes by microsoft which run thusly:


Windows Server licences to be sold in packs of 2 (ok)
Windows Server licences to be sold as a minimum of 16 per server (wtf!)


This means that if we want a test server, or a dev server - we need to get 16 cores!? We have no need for this madness...


It gets better because with the price of SQL at £2660 PER CORE, I am now getting quotes of £42560 FOR A TEST SERVER!



This is absolute madness and I must be missing something here, can anyone confirm?? We won't get 80% of our projects off the ground if this is indeed true!
 
A single Windows Server Standard license covers a "base" license and then two Hyper-V guests. Yes, a minimum of 16 cores must be licensed for each server.

HP have a calculater here:

http://h17007.www1.hpe.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/licensing/index.aspx#.WX8ehOnfiUn

A HP ROK of Server 2016 Standard (which has 16 cores) (SKU 871148-B21) is around £530+VAT.

If the SQL Server is runing as a VM, do you need to license all cores for your testing?

To license a VM with core licenses, purchase a core license for each virtual core (virtual thread) allocated to the VM (with a minimum of 4 core licenses per VM)
Click to expand...

https://download.microsoft.com/down...SQL_Server_2016_Licensing_Datasheet_EN_US.pdf.
 
To calm you down somewhat: just because you have to license a minimum of 16 cores for Windows doesn't mean you have to present all 16 to a VM, SQL Core licensing is a minimum of 4 cores, just don't present more than you actually need.

Brew yourself a nice Brownian Motion producer (say a nice hot cup of tea), take a deep breath, and settle in to reading the Licensing Datasheets for Windows and SQL. I'd also recommend not doing so alone, bouncing choice paragraphs off another person to try and figure out the meaning behind it all will help enormously.


##### The extended bit #####
MS licensing is shifting heavily towards cloud and virtualised workloads.
If you're using virtualisation in any form and are deploying a lot of windows guests then you should certainly look at licensing your hosts for Windows rather than each guest - And if you aren't using virtualisation you should definitely be looking into it.

SQL Enterprise is much more expensive than SQL Standard, so make sure that this is the edition you genuinely need. I wouldn't even be trying to justify Enterprise for a test system.
If you use a lot of SQL but only for internal users you may find it's cheaper to license every user or device with a CAL and license SQL (Non core edition) on the server for less than £1K a time.
I'm already rambling so won't throw the 'benefits' of SA into the mix when virtualising in this post.


I work for the NHS too and am pretty well versed in Microsoft Licensing, it's something of a minefield if you've not kept up with it since the 2008 License terms we've all been used to adhering by.
If you post back with more specifics about number of users, your current virtualisation platform and the new system specs you're looking at I am certain everyone here can help you out.
 
I've not dabbled with MS licensing for a while but isn't it also a fact that you have to get software assurance if you want to host an MS VM on anything other than Hyper-V/Azure to cover the potential movement of the VM to other hypervisor hosts?
 
Schnippzle said:
I've not dabbled with MS licensing for a while but isn't it also a fact that you have to get software assurance if you want to host an MS VM on anything other than Hyper-V/Azure to cover the potential movement of the VM to other hypervisor hosts?
Click to expand...

Yep, it's referred to as 'License Mobility' - one of the things I decided to skip in my already overlong post.
You can reallocate a license between hosts whenever you want with SA but only every 90 days without. For a test system you'd have to question whether you could save the money and just assign the guest to a single host and deal with any host downtime as required.
 
NHS here, we've had some interesting times of late with the MS licence changes... I've a large box of CPUs and memory sat here from a range of HPE DL580 VMware hosts, which were removed to save us having to pay an insane amount of money to bring us in line with the latest requirements.

Doesn't even take into account the SQL consolidation project, with has been even more "interesting".
 
Hi @#Chri5# #
That's fine, however this means the licencing for SQL goes through the roof as (if what I was told is true) SQL licencing is based on the PHYSICAL CPU cores now, not on the virtual as it is what you are CAPABLE of running, rather than what you are actually needing.

@Little_Crow
Yes all our servers virtual (and our software is distributed via App-V / SCCM) however, if an application requires a server, it gets its own server, we don't mix multiple apps with the same server (I guess you could say "muddying the water") :) This quote is for SQL Server Standard core licences, so it's not even a case of enterprise edition, however it's at £2660 per licence.

I have run the idea of "IT pays for the full 16 and are then recompensed by the departments as per their needs" (e.g they need 4 cores and only pay for 4 cores), whether this is ok I need to double check with our provider because they didn't clarify if the 16 core requirement was for the physical server (host) or the virtual server(s). From reading that HP site @#Chri5# gave, it is for physical cores, so it looks like I'm being quoted for a host rather than a virtual server (fingers crossed).

If it's for virtual servers, there's going to be a lot of sad pandas. I'm escalating to our director of IT so we can see who is going to absorb the initial cost. Should be IT IMHO, but I've been surprised before...
 
Little_Crow said:
Yep, it's referred to as 'License Mobility' - one of the things I decided to skip in my already overlong post.
You can reallocate a license between hosts whenever you want with SA but only every 90 days without. For a test system you'd have to question whether you could save the money and just assign the guest to a single host and deal with any host downtime as required.
Click to expand...

Ah, cool. Thanks for clarifying that. Haven't dealt with licensing for about two years so out of the loop!
 
CaptainComedy said:
Hi @#Chri5# #
That's fine, however this means the licencing for SQL goes through the roof as (if what I was told is true) SQL licencing is based on the PHYSICAL CPU cores now, not on the virtual as it is what you are CAPABLE of running, rather than what you are actually needing.
Click to expand...

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding you, but if the SQL Server is a VM, you can license a minimum of 4 cores - you don't have to license all the physical cores in the server. From the MS SQL PDF I linked to above:

INDIVIDUAL VIRTUAL MACHINES
As hardware capabilities grow, it continues to be more common for each database to use a fraction of its server’s computing power. When deploying databases on Virtual Machines (VMs) that use just a fraction of a physical server, savings can be achieved by licensing individual VMs.

  • To license a VM with core licenses, purchase a core license for each virtual core (virtual thread) allocated to the VM (with a minimum of 4 core licenses per VM).
  • To license a single VM with a server license (for StandardEdition only), purchase a server license and matching SQL Server CALs for each user or device
Click to expand...

AIUI...

For the Windows Server, if I have a server with 16 physical cores (1 x 16 CPU or 2 x 8) and I want to run 2 VMs on it, I can buy a single Windows Server license that has 16 cores. If my server has 32 cores, then I need to add another license. If I want to run 4 VMs on 16 cores, again it's 1+1 license or 4 VMs on 32 cores it's 1 + 3 licenses.

These are the HP SKUs:

871148-B21 - Server 2016 Standard with 16 Cores
871157-A21 - Server 2016 Standard APOS - Additional 16 Cores
871158-A21 - Server 2016 Standard APOS - Additional 4 Cores
871159-A21 - Server 2016 Standard APOS - Additional 2 Cores

So 4 VMs on 32 physical cores would be 1 x ROK + 3 x additional 16 cores. You have to work out how VMs you are running to see where it's cheaper to switch to DC over Standard.
 
Hi Chris,
Thanks for that and it makes sense, I have a feeling the reseller is saying "we can't sell you less than 16 cores, however you may distribute among VMs how you wish"... I will clarify
 
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