{"id":998,"date":"2010-03-29T15:36:45","date_gmt":"2010-03-29T14:36:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.galhano.com\/blog\/?p=998"},"modified":"2010-03-29T15:37:13","modified_gmt":"2010-03-29T14:37:13","slug":"hyper-v-licensing-explained","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/?p=998","title":{"rendered":"Hyper-V Licensing Explained!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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First, a term definition: Microsoft uses the term “OSE” to refer to an operating system environment, either physical or virtual. <\/span>Also, Microsoft refers to a “processor” in the context of a single processor socket<\/span> on the motherboard. <\/span>This calculation is not<\/span> affected when considering multiple core processors or hyper-threading capabilities on certain processor types.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

posted in: http:\/\/msmvps.com\/blogs\/virtualreality<\/a><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008<\/span><\/strong>, the latest product is a free download from Microsoft<\/a>. <\/span>While this initially seems like the only answer to your needs, remember that Hyper-V Server provides no<\/span> licensing for OSEs. <\/span>Each virtual OSE requires its own licensing. <\/span>It is also limited in terms of support for total RAM, number of processors and has no Quick Migration or High Availability capabilities.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Windows Server 2008 Standard Edition<\/span><\/strong> provides a single license to run a single instance of the software. <\/span>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. <\/span>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. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Standard Edition is the most cost-effective if you want to run up to three simultaneous instances in a virtual OSE on the server.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition<\/span><\/strong> expands upon these terms, providing licensing for up to four simultaneous virtual OSEs in addition to the physical OSE. <\/span>You can run either Standard or Enterprise Edition in the virtual OSEs. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition<\/span><\/strong> completes the journey, with unlimited licensing for virtual OSEs. <\/span>You can run Standard, Enterprise or Datacenter in the virtual OSEs.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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 \u201cunlimited\u201d virtualization rights reduces concern of licensing compliance.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2008<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Windows Server 2008 Standard<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Windows Server 2008 Enterprise<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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Windows Server 2008 Datacenter<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n

<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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No Licenses<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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1 Physical + 1 Virtual<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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1 Physical + 4 Virtual<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n

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1 Physical + unlimited virtual<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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: <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/windowsserver2003\/howtobuy\/licensing\/calculator.mspx<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

One last note is that Datacenter is no longer an OEM-only SKU. <\/span>The availability of Datacenter changed back in the Server 2003 R2 days and has continued through the Server 2008 release.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"close","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-microsoft","author-admin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=998"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1000,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/998\/revisions\/1000"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/galhano.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}