Server Licensing - Mix of old 2008-2016 servers/HOSTs etc

[Steve21]

Good Morning All,

 

So doing some work with another school, and trying to do some backwork to their setup while I have some spare time, and trying to get my head around how this mess can be licensed most cost effectively

 

(Now I fully get the, these all need to be binned and updated stance, but in terms of making sure they are just licensed properly in the current state )

 

They have a lot of old servers etc still being used as below, and unless they have a huge amount of 2016 licenses purchased, I can't see how this can be licensed currently (*if it is*) without spending a bomb (don't have access to their VL yet)

 

PHYSICAL -

2008R2 x2

2012R2 x3

 

HOSTs -

2008R2 - HyperV x1

2012R2 - Core x4

 

VMs -

2008R2 x4

2012R2 x6

2016 x4

 

 

 

Based on the above:

 

For 5 Physical servers - 2008R2 x2 / 2012R2 x3 - that's the easy part

 

Now the 5 HOSTs are all using the free HyperV licenses (whether 2008R2/2012R2), which I'm assuming at this point means they aren't licensed separately, therefore no free VMs can be included

 

Now the tricky bit is the VMs, working backwards, 2016 x4 VMs, would need 16x 2016 2-Core Pack (assuming that the VMs are only on 2 hosts (2 each) and under the core cap), potentially up to 32x 2016 2-Core Pack licenses if split across the 4 HOSTs, which then may need up to 64x if it's not fully covering the cores of the hosts.

 

That still leaves 2008R2 x4 and 2012R2 x6 to be licensed, that'd need 2008R2 x4 (Unless Enterprise which would then be 1 if on same server), and 2012R2 x3 (Again assuming they're on the "right" server to share licenses, else potentially up to 2012R2 x5 to cross HOSTs

 

Best case I can see would be something like:

PHYSICAL01 - OS: 2008R2 - License: 1x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL02 - OS: 2008R2 - License: 1x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL03 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL04 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL05 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

 

HOST01 - OS: 2008R2 HyperV - License: Replace with 2x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

HOST02 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 2x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

HOST03 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 1x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

HOST04 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 8x 2016 2-Core (Minimum requirements)

HOST05 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 8x 2016 2-Core (Minimum requirements)

 

VM01 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM02 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM03 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM04 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM05 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST02

VM06 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST02

VM07 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST02

VM08 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST02

VM09 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST03

VM10 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST03

VM11 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST04

VM12 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST04

VM13 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST05

VM14 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST05

 

Requiring:

2x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

8x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

16x 2016 2-Core

 

 

Worst Case based on the assumption the 2016s aren't spread nicely, and cores are larger than the minimum:

PHYSICAL01 - OS: 2008R2 - License: 1x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL02 - OS: 2008R2 - License: 1x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL03 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL04 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

PHYSICAL05 - OS: 2012R2 - License: 1x 2012R2 (or downgrade rights)

 

HOST01 - OS: 2008R2 HyperV - License: 2x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

HOST02 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 16x 2016 2-Core (Based on 2x over 8 core processors)

HOST03 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 16x 2016 2-Core (Based on 2x over 8 core processors)

HOST04 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 16x 2016 2-Core (Based on 2x over 8 core processors)

HOST05 - OS: 2012R2 Core - License: Replace with 16x 2016 2-Core (Based on 2x over 8 core processors)

 

VM01 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM02 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM03 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM04 - OS: 2008R2 - License: Included with HOST01

VM05 - OS: 2012R2 - License: ???

VM06 - OS: 2012R2 - License: ???

VM07 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST02

VM08 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST03

VM09 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST04

VM10 - OS: 2012R2 - License: Included with HOST05

VM11 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST02

VM12 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST03

VM13 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST04

VM14 - OS: 2016 - License: Included with HOST05

 

 

Requiring:

2x 2008R2 (or downgrade rights)

5x 2012R2 Standard (or downgrade rights)

64x 2016 2-Core

And still 2 VMs unlicensed depending what server they sit on

 

 

Anything obvious I'm missing before I check with the school, as can't imagine them buying this many licenses every year without querying the huge bill!

 

Thanks,

Steve

[Boredguy]

Well the Hyper-V is the easy question, as the hypervisor itself is free, you just need the licence for the VM's as normal.

 

For everything else, based off the information previously we've previously had in our Select agreement (which most of our server licences were through), 1 standard windows licence allows 2 VM's if on the same host, and at a certain point it makes sense to go to the Datacentre.

 

So Host01 which has 4 VM's needs at least 2 Standard Windows Licence suitable for the version running (2019 should still give downgrade rights, and on OVS-EES they were under £50 each as a ball park)

So for the VM's you need at least 7 standard licences, plus the 5 for the physical servers.

 

Now if your Hyper-V's had more VM's each, then datacentre would make sense

[Steve21]

Aye, it seems to be about 7 VMs that data centre breaks even on. The HOST aspect is covered in a license either way as it's HOST+2VM a single license gives, which is why I just mentioned about using it that way around, but it's not really paying for it as such as it's covers 2 VMs on top

 

The problem is where it's 2016+ that it then also takes cores into account, so will obviously depend how many cores in total each server has in terms of licensing, but all a bit of guess work currently until I get access to VL etc

 

Between the licensing and warranties, feel it's gonna be a lot cheaper to just replace half of these with beefier HOSTs

 

Steve

[Boredguy]

Well my estimate is based off our current quotes we had which was for a 16 Core licence for the £50ish mark on OVS for 2019

[Steve21]

Ah my bad skipped over that line, is that £50 for 2019 downgraded currently? Or was that for 2016 direct?

 

Thanks,

Steve

[Boredguy]

All our server licences have downgrade rights iirc, and sure thats the same for 2019 but it's the first one we're getting via OVS as we've typically gone via Select (just didn't give me SA like OVS does now)

[minimoo]

My take:

 

Hyper-V - free, so need OS license for guests.

 

So, 5 , 16-core pack data centre licenses would allow for unlimited VM's - and cost £1500 a year if on an OVS-ES agreement, give or take. Assuming these are older lowish spec boxes.

 

Standard, there's 14 vm's. A standard license allows up to 2 OS's

 

Host 1 + 2 VM's -> 16

Host 2 + 2 VM's -> 16

Host 3 + 2 VM's -> 16

Host 4 + 2 VM's -> 16

Host 5 + 2 VM's -> 16

Additional 2 VM's -> 16

Additional 2 VM's -> 16

==> 112 core's

 

So cheapest way to get that would be to purchase 7, 16-core packs - which would be about £300-350 / year

[johnlevis]

On an OVS-ES agreeement servers are licenced per physical server and can be licenced in 2 ways:

 

Server Standard –minimum licensing requirement is 8 cores per processor and 16 cores per server. This will give the rights to 2 x virtual machines

Server DataCentre –minimum licensing requirement is 8 cores per processor and 16 cores per server. This will give the rights to unlimited virtual machines

 

Both licences have the same functionality and if you have more than 16 cores you can buy additional licences of the same type, using the 2 core pack or the 16 core pack to cover the additional number.

 

Standard licences can be ‘stacked’ (if you have 4 x virtual machines you can buy 2x sets of licences- i.e cover all physical cores, at a minimum of 8 per processor, and 16 per server again. Every time this is done you can run an additional 2 Virtual Machines. So for 6 Virtual Machines you would cover all of the physical cores, again at the minimums, for a third time, and so on. There comes a point (12 virtual machines) where it is more cost-effective to buy a Datacentre licence. It could also be worth buying a Datacentre licence if you expect to be doing a lot of virtualisation in the future

 

So you need to start with the physical server numbers and cover the number of vm's on each. If you want to get in touch, I'll send over a table to fill in and get you some numbers back.

 

John Levis | Software and Solutions Specialist

Tel: 0114 321 8609

[email protected]

very-pc.co.uk

[Steve21]

Thanks guys, appreciate the insights.

 

Will have to try to get some more details from the school, and have a nosy at their current licensing to see where to go, as should narrow down what is and isn't licened, which hopefully will be in a week or two tops, and then can re-evaluate where they stand

 

Thanks,

Steve