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Licensing on VLSC :)

datar_

By datar_
in Windows Server 2016

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SHimmer45

SHimmer45

Posted
Posted

not used "core" much but i can see the idea of it.

one of the main changes i am interested in with 2016 is the optimizing of storage spaces volumes which should have the head ache of having to recopy data onto certain rebuilt volumes for it to use all of the disks.

Blue_Cookeh

Blue_Cookeh

Posted
Posted
Microsoft don't need to include IE, they choose to?

 

There's a lot more than just the GUI taken out when you choose core, hence they can reduce security updates by around 50%, and if you choose Nano for your Hyper-V infrastructure I believe it cuts that further to 75%.

Michael

Michael

Posted
Posted
There's a lot more than just the GUI taken out when you choose core, hence they can reduce security updates by around 50%, and if you choose Nano for your Hyper-V infrastructure I believe it cuts that further to 75%.

 

But I suspect the likelihood is the majority of schools will still install with the GUI. Even if you reduce the number of updates, you'll no doubt still need to apply them monthly and still require a reboot, so the benefit in that respect is zero.

FragglePete

FragglePete

Posted
Posted
Have you tried setting the edition within the OS itself? e.g.

 

dism.exe /online /Set-Edition:ServerDatacenter /AcceptEula /ProductKey:CB7KF-BWN84-R7R2Y-793K2-8XDDG

 

Tried that with a new install on a new server and it just seems to get stuck at 10.0%. May just have to wait for the proper ISO but I'm getting impatient - have shiny new Dell PowerEdge R730xd sitting in the rack.

 

Pete

Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted
Tried that with a new install on a new server and it just seems to get stuck at 10.0%. May just have to wait for the proper ISO but I'm getting impatient - have shiny new Dell PowerEdge R730xd sitting in the rack.

 

Pete

 

The process mentioned previously does work to flip it from evaluation to Live.

 

I already have 4 RDS farm servers up and running in Live production and about to stand up my new DC next week.

FragglePete

FragglePete

Posted
Posted
The process mentioned previously does work to flip it from evaluation to Live.

 

I already have 4 RDS farm servers up and running in Live production and about to stand up my new DC next week.

 

Yeah, got it working eventually - my new Hyper-V host is showing Full 2016 Server Center activated...... and then they finally realease the ISO !!! doh! lol!

 

Oh well, seems to work well.

 

Pete

Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted
Storage Spaces Direct is the killer feature for me - time to try it out!

 

SSD not to be confused with the actual storage drive (need to come up with a better acronym for Storage Spaced, SSDir?) is great having played with it.

 

I love the fact that using SSD's and regular SAS server drives (which are usually either 10k or 15k rpm) to form a SAN cluster across multiple servers is now a reality however disk space is an issue I foresee.

Server disks whether its SSD or SAS are usually not that big and when they are they cost £££

 

Take for example my DL380's G7 (I think, cant remember, need more coffee!). They can hold 8 drives if I remember rightly, 2 of which straight away would be used in a Raid 1 for the base OS on the server leaving me with 6.

So I potentially have 6 drives, 2 SSD's and 4 SAS to use in the SSDir Configuration, the SSD's are 128gb and the SAS 256gb. Now i know upon setting up the cluster and configuring SSDir you can then start implementing De-Duplication which I already use on the Hyper-V hosts running the RDSH VM's which compresses a lot but it would need some serious number crunching to work out the fine details of a large scale deployment to compensate a SAN.

 

At present I have 2 SANS (Coraid, *yucK*) in a mirror config with 16x 2TB 7200rpm drives due to storage demands of VM's, my file server being the main culprit like everyone else.

 

It all boils down to performance and cost of SSDir in comparison to picking up a fairly decent SAN and some drives.

Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted
What version should I download then?

 

Standard or data-center? Whats the difference?

 

Datacenter is for VM hosting and subsequent VM's while standard is your normal. You need to use whatever you have paid for as part of your licensing agreement.

Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted
Both. Datacenter for Hyper-V hosts and Standard for guest VMs.

 

Don't use DC if you haven't brought the appropriate licensing through your VLSC, Datacenter costs A LOT more than Standard

zag

zag

Posted
Posted (edited)

Yep we only have standard 2016 licenses which are very cheap (£29 a year).

 

Anyone know how much the datacenter license is on EES pricing?

 

Reason I ask is these machines will be hyper-v hosts with hopefully 5+ VM's on them.

Edited by zag
jmak

jmak

Posted
Posted
Both. Datacenter for Hyper-V hosts and Standard for guest VMs.

Hmmm. I used hyper-v core as my host, but bought a data centre licence so that I want restricted on the number of VMs I could run as I wanted flexibility on how I split the roles. Now that I'm happy with my setup, I'm going to buy standard licences to save money this year. Will I need to change the activation codes or other items to be compliant, or will I be OK as long as I don't run more VMs than in licenced for?

Don't use DC if you haven't brought the appropriate licensing through your VLSC, Datacenter costs A LOT more than Standard

Despite my query above, the cost isn't massive (as long as you're a school). Exchange rates will affect renewals, but if you're running a reasonable number of VMs, it's worth getting a quote from your reseller.

Blue_Cookeh

Blue_Cookeh

Posted
Posted
Hmmm. I used hyper-v core as my host, but bought a data centre licence so that I want restricted on the number of VMs I could run as I wanted flexibility on how I split the roles. Now that I'm happy with my setup, I'm going to buy standard licences to save money this year. Will I need to change the activation codes or other items to be compliant, or will I be OK as long as I don't run more VMs than in licenced for?

 

Despite my query above, the cost isn't massive (as long as you're a school). Exchange rates will affect renewals, but if you're running a reasonable number of VMs, it's worth getting a quote from your reseller.

 

You will need to change your Datacenter installs to Standard to be compliant with licensing, even if you stay under the VM count. They're licensed as two completely separate SKUs with different roles/features/licensing models.

Arthur

Arthur

Posted
Posted (edited)
Don't use DC if you haven't brought the appropriate licensing through your VLSC

Indeed. That applies to any software you aren't licensed for though. :)

 

Datacenter costs A LOT more than Standard

Anyone know how much the datacenter license is on EES pricing?

Our EES agreement was renewed before the Server 2016 licensing changes came into effect so the Datacenter licenses only cost us £299.27 each (vs £29.84 for Standard). Due to the number of VMs we have it actually works out cheaper to go with the Datacenter edition for each Hyper-V host.

Edited by Arthur
Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted (edited)
Hmmm. I used hyper-v core as my host, but bought a data centre licence so that I want restricted on the number of VMs I could run as I wanted flexibility on how I split the roles. Now that I'm happy with my setup, I'm going to buy standard licences to save money this year. Will I need to change the activation codes or other items to be compliant, or will I be OK as long as I don't run more VMs than in licenced for?

 

Confused by how your describing your setup. Core is just a version of install (EG. Core vs GUI) whereas Datacenter vs Standard are an Edition, both standard and datacenter can have core install.

 

The link below explains it easily with diagrams and I refer people to this to properly understand but this easiest way to refer to the Edition licensing is by asking the simple question "Do you need a host with more than 2 VM's (doesn't matter if its Hyper-V, Xenapp or VMWare)", if Yes than you need Datacenter, if no then you can use Standard with licenses you for 2 virtual's (but only if its a Hyper V host).

 

Hyper-V and Guest Virtualization Licensing

 

My setup is a 3 server VMware host cluster, I run 3x DL380's which have dual Hex Core CPU's.

Server 2012 R2 and below license on per CPU so for 3 dual core hosts I needed 6 licenses, 1 license per cpu across 3 servers. This allowed me unlimited VM installs, I'm just not using Hyper-V as the host platform.

- If I brought Standard edition as my host is NOT Hyper-V the Standard license would allow for 1 VM in VMware world but than that VM could be a Hyper-V host in itself and I could run 2 Hyper-V VM's in that 1 VMware VM (nested VM's, messy, complicated and a waste of resources).

- If my 3 servers were to run Windows as my Hypervisor and utilize Hyper-V i would need the same licensing as details above, 6x datacenter licenses

- If i brought Standard edition and used that as my servers hypervisor I would need to buy 6 licenses (again per cpu, 3x dual cpu = 6) however each host is officially only licensed for 2 VM's

 

As for Server 2016 moving forward its not CPU based licensing anymore its core and its in bundles:

- Each processor must be licensed for at least 8 cores

- Every server must be licensed for at least 16 cores (this is equivalent to previous versions that requires two sockets minimum to be covered)

- Core licenses are sold in packs of two which means the minimum number for each server is 8 2-core packs

 

So for my next renewal of ESS I will need to buy 8 core packs of 2016 per server covering me up to 16 cores totals which works out at 2x Octo Core CPU's even though I only have 2x Hex core CPU's.

Reason for this, server CPU cores are increasing drastically.

 

EDIT - @jmak - Only convert your DC licenses to Standard if you are running 2 VM's under a Hyper V host otherwise you are not properly licensed. If you are using another Hypervisor and wanted to downgrade from DC you would need to buy 1 standard license for each VM to be properly licensed.

 

EDIT 2 - But while this is all relevant and you are supposed to follow these Licensing rules by Microsoft 90%+ of organisations whether it be businesses or schools don't follow this and their licensing does not match their installs, I've done enough consulting to know this and when trying to advise them that they SHOULD change they never do because they see the bigger cost of their incorrect licensing and think they can carry on as is as it works.

Take Unified Messenger in Exchange that needs a normal cal and an Enterprise cal or even S4B which requires a normal cal and an enterprise cal for calling to PSTN. I solved all our Exchange licensing issues by simply farming it all out to Office 365 and using the free Exchange Online plan 1 for normal mailboxes and the £0 cost Exchange Online plan 2 for unified messaging mailboxes, ow and don't forget the Exchange server cal license too, saved a good couple £2.3k per annum.

 

Just because you can do it because Microsoft don't set hard limits in their licensing when activating features doesn't mean to say you should do it and don't need to be licensed for it.

Edited by Tefters
  • Thanks 1
Tefters

Tefters

Posted
Posted

Warning to anyone out there, Standard/Datacenter and Multipoint (WTF is Multipoint?!) are now all the same ISO, i initially thought my Datacenter ISO was missing but it is no longer a seperate ISO.

 

The Microsoft licensing team only just worked this one out on the phone with me also.

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