I’ve spoken to a lot of people who have expressed a lot of confusion about the OS licensing model when virtualizing systems using Hyper-V products.
There are some simple guidelines to observe when planning your Hyper-V infrastructure to take advantage of the licensing models for each edition of Windows Server 2008.
First, a term definition: Microsoft uses the term “OSE” to refer to an operating system environment, either physical or virtual. Also, Microsoft refers to a “processor” in the context of a single processor socket on the motherboard. This calculation is not affected when considering multiple core processors or hyper-threading capabilities on certain processor types.
posted in: http://msmvps.com/blogs/virtualreality
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008, the latest product is a free download from Microsoft. While this initially seems like the only answer to your needs, remember that Hyper-V Server provides no licensing for OSEs. Each virtual OSE requires its own licensing. It is also limited in terms of support for total RAM, number of processors and has no Quick Migration or High Availability capabilities.
Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition provides a single license to run a single instance of the software. My understanding of these terms is that this permits you to run a single virtual OSE on top of the Standard Edition server without requiring additional licenses. This arrangement also means that you are only permitted to use the physical server itself to run the Hyper-V virtualization software and to manage the OSEs on the server.
Standard Edition is the most cost-effective if you want to run up to three simultaneous instances in a virtual OSE on the server.
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition expands upon these terms, providing licensing for up to four simultaneous virtual OSEs in addition to the physical OSE. You can run either Standard or Enterprise Edition in the virtual OSEs.
Enterprise Edition is most cost-effective if you want to run four simultaneous instances in a virtual OSE per processor. Enterprise Edition is licensed by server, not per processor, but more than one Enterprise Edition license may be assigned to a server to have the rights to run more than four instances of Windows Server. For example, one license for Enterprise Edition for a one-processor server running four instances of Windows Server in a virtual OSE is slightly less expensive than one Datacenter processor license. And, two licenses for Enterprise Edition for a two-processor server running eight instances of Windows Server in a virtual OSE is slightly less expensive than two processor licenses for Datacenter Edition.
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition completes the journey, with unlimited licensing for virtual OSEs. You can run Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter in the virtual OSEs.
While Datacenter Edition is licensed by processor, not per server, it is most cost-effective for running more than four instances per processor. At four instances per processor, Datacenter Edition is slightly more expensive than Enterprise Edition, but provides room to add instances in a virtual OSE on the server at no additional cost. The flexibility gained from “unlimited” virtualization rights reduces concern of licensing compliance.
|
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008 |
Windows Server 2008 Standard |
Windows Server 2008 Enterprise |
Windows Server 2008 Datacenter |
|
No Licenses |
1 Physical + 1 Virtual |
1 Physical + 4 Virtual |
1 Physical + unlimited virtual |
There are two great Windows Server Virtualization Calculators available online to help you estimate your needs and the cost impact of each edition. You can find them here:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/calculator.mspx
One last note is that Datacenter is no longer an OEM-only SKU. The availability of Datacenter changed back in the Server 2003 R2 days and has continued through the Server 2008 release.
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