jmak Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 Sorry - I confused the issue with incorrect naming. My host runs Hyper-V server - the free edition which can only be used for a host and has no GUI. I run four VMs. I know a standard licences allows 2 VMs. Can I buy two standard licences or is that configuration not allowed unless you buy data centre? To change the edition from data centre to standard do I just enter a different activation code or use slmgr black magic or do they want me to reinstall the OS?
Tefters Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 Sorry - I confused the issue with incorrect naming. My host runs Hyper-V server - the free edition which can only be used for a host and has no GUI. I run four VMs. I know a standard licences allows 2 VMs. Can I buy two standard licences or is that configuration not allowed unless you buy data centre? To change the edition from data centre to standard do I just enter a different activation code or use slmgr black magic or do they want me to reinstall the OS? You have 2 ways of licensing in your setup now i know your running the free Hyper-V version. 1. Buy a total of 4 standard licenses (1 for each VM) but you will never be able to setup a cluster for failover and any additional VM's will require a standard license - Not great... 2. Buy a datacenter license to cover your host and unlimited VM's, will also cover you for clustering failover and can make your servers into a SDDir cluster - Perfect... In order to swap editions on the fly you can use a DISM /online command, look back at page 2/3 of this thread for an example of swapping 2016 Eval to Datacenter. 1
newpersn Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 Mines activated though kms now. Not made any changes to my kms server... (unless its the same host as windows 10?!?)
CAWJames Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 my 10 LTSB's and 2016 test servers aren't activating, awaiting the key...who's silly idea was it to only publish MAK's and make KMS request only, I thought one of the big fanfare reasons KMS was bought in was to combat MAK piracy
Tefters Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 @CAWJames - Just call them, use option 4 and give them your VL number, they do it over the phone in 3 mins.
CAWJames Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 That's what I usually do, but someone published the kmsadd address, so I thought that might be easier, never thought about quicker... Any idea what the number is?
FN-GM Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 That's what I usually do, but someone published the kmsadd address, so I thought that might be easier, never thought about quicker... Any idea what the number is? 0800 9179016 or email [email protected]
Blue_Cookeh Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 You have 2 ways of licensing in your setup now i know your running the free Hyper-V version. 1. Buy a total of 4 standard licenses (1 for each VM) but you will never be able to setup a cluster for failover and any additional VM's will require a standard license - Not great... 2. Buy a datacenter license to cover your host and unlimited VM's, will also cover you for clustering failover and can make your servers into a SDDir cluster - Perfect... In order to swap editions on the fly you can use a DISM /online command, look back at page 2/3 of this thread for an example of swapping 2016 Eval to Datacenter. Standard gives you x2 VM licenses and will license the hypervisor so long as the only role it is running is Hyper-V.
CAWJames Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 If you use the main physical hardware for anything other than Hyper-V role, then it takes the second licence, meaning in that scenario you can only have 1 VM
Tefters Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) Standard gives you x2 VM licenses and will license the hypervisor so long as the only role it is running is Hyper-V. Yes standard does give you 2 VM's in its license but only when it's the host, you should not be using standard to license 2 VM's when it's not the host that's what datacenter is for and allows for unlimited VM's whether it's the host or not. It's deep down in MS T's and C's I remember reading years ago. It doesn't help either that Microsoft Licensing resellers don't fully understand all the aspects themselves leaving the like of us a lot of reading and understanding if you want to be truely compliant. Edited October 13, 2016 by Tefters
Blue_Cookeh Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) Yes standard does give you 2 VM's in its license but only when it's the host, you should not be using standard to license 2 VM's when it's not the host that's what datacenter is for and allows for unlimited VM's whether it's the host or not. It's deep down in MS T's and C's I remember reading years ago. It doesn't help either that Microsoft Licensing resellers don't fully understand all the aspects themselves leaving the like of us a lot of reading and understanding if you want to be truely compliant. Our licensing company specifically checked for us and told us that I could license x4 Windows VMs on one Hyper-V host using x2 Standard licenses. If we get audited I'll be pointing towards them and shouting not my problem, I guess. Edited October 13, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh
Tefters Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 Hmmm... That really doesn't sound right to me from what I read years back. Have you confirmed this direct with VLSC?
Blue_Cookeh Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 (edited) Hmmm... That really doesn't sound right to me from what I read years back. Have you confirmed this direct with VLSC? Googled and googled, people seem to agree. The one pitfall is your Standard license is tied to the physical host. If you need to migrate VMs from one host to another you must have both physical servers fully licensed, or wait 90 days to transfer the physical license back to the original host. Windows Server 2012 R2 Licensing and Virtualization | Windows OS Hub Hyper-V and Guest Virtualization Licensing Windows Server 2012 R2 Licensing | Aidan Finn, IT Pro Edited October 13, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh
Tefters Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 Hmmm fair play, seems a little underhanded but all's fair in love and licensing.
CAWJames Posted October 13, 2016 Posted October 13, 2016 You can stack licenses, that's what MS tell you to do, until you hit a price point that warrants DC so 2 standard is 4 VM's plus host with only hyper-v role, or 3 VM's and a host doing Hyper-V and other nefarious deeds 2
datar_ Posted October 14, 2016 Author Posted October 14, 2016 In terms of licening would it not be easier to use Hyper-V Host and RSAT it. What's the stipulation of licensing on a Hyper-V Host compared to using Server 2016 STD? I would assume it would have to be a 1:1 license per vm?
CAWJames Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 Yep, if your using the free host, then it's 1 licence per VM needed
jmak Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 Yep, if your using the free host, then it's 1 licence per VM needed So if I change my host to standard running as the hyper v host with no other roles I can then stack another standard licence and run 4 VMs with 2 licences, but if I stick with the free hyper v server, I'd need 4 standard licences? I use RSAT to manage the servers anyway, so having the GUI or not doesn't make much difference.... Everything I can find talks about stacking licences on a host and about how server 2012 is "cloud ready". What I'm reading suggests that means that you might be hosting on your own physical box or in the cloud and MS only differentiates by number of cores, rather than physical boxes now. I'm still pretty confused - I can see logic for needing 2, 3 or 4 licences..... The quote I've had so far suggests that I require 2 - I think I'll take the same approach mentioned above: be very clear on what I'm going to do when I ask for a quote and then point at the authorised reseller if I get questions.
CAWJames Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 Thats about it! Perks for not going free! In the real world, DC is very expensive, so sometimes it is cheaper to stack with each std licence providing 2 virtuals - - - Updated - - - http://download.microsoft.com/download/3/d/4/3d42bdc2-6725-4b29-b75a-a5b04179958b/windowsserver2012virtualtech_vlbrief.pdf See section marked "Licensing of Running Instances of the Software" 2
Blue_Cookeh Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) You do not need to install Server Standard on your Physical host. You can get away with using the free Hyper-V version (not sure why you would want to), but you're just eating your physical Standard license then. You can still stack Standard licenses on top of your Hyper-V install and keep using your x2 virtual OSEs per license. So you could do: Physical Hyper-V: -- x2 Virtual Standard installs This would need 1 Standard license. Physical Standard: -- x2 Virtual Standard installs This would need 1 Standard license Physical Standard: -- x4 virtual Standard installs This would need 2 Standard licenses and so on. Edited October 14, 2016 by Blue_Cookeh
jmak Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 (edited) Thanks @CAWJames That's one of the documents I came across yesterday. I read further down and my reading of it is that you need one standard licence per 2 VMs and it doesn't matter what host you use (as long as the host isn't an instance of MS Server running additional roles to hyper-v). Licensing Windows Server 2012 R2 for Use with Virtualization Solutions If a server is running a hypervisor on bare metal (directly on top of the server hardware), such as VMware’s ESX/vSphere), then Windows Server is not deployed as a host operating system in the physical OSE. However, a license is required for every physical processor on the server and every “guest OS” instance running in a virtual OSE should be appropriately licensed (Standard edition will allow up to two virtual instances with each license and Datacenter edition will allow an unlimited number of virtual instances with each license). If you have assigned a single license for Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard to a server running ESX/ESXi, then you may run two instances of Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard at a time. The right to run an instance of Windows Server 2012 R2 in the physical OSE cannot be used in this case since ESX/ESXi runs on the physical OSE (and as a result, Windows Server 2012 R2 cannot be deployed as the operating system on the physical OSE). If you have assigned a second Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard edition to the server running ESX/ESXi, then you may run up to four instances at a time of Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard. You may not run a fifth virtual instance under the same license. You could, however, run a fifth instance of Windows Server if it is running as a physical instance on top of the server hardware. [/Quote] (My bold) Edited October 14, 2016 by jmak
Blue_Cookeh Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 Thanks @CAWJames That's one of the documents I came across yesterday. I read further down and my reading of it is that you need one standard licence per 2 VMs and it doesn't matter what host you use (as long as the host isn't an instance of MS Server running additional roles to hyper-v). (My bold) This is correct, just bare in mind that if you shift VMs from host to host, the hosts must have Standard licenses assigned to them, and you can only move Standard licenses between hosts (on paper, not technically) every 90 days.
jmak Posted October 14, 2016 Posted October 14, 2016 This is correct, just bare in mind that if you shift VMs from host to host, the hosts must have Standard licenses assigned to them, and you can only move Standard licenses between hosts (on paper, not technically) every 90 days. I'll worry about that if I ever get more than one host[emoji57]
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