M$ Licensing... help me out here!!!

[Dotdotdooda]

I am truly baffled by the ever changing M$ licensing terms. Just about every year it changes so that the cost of licensing increases without any actual change to what the servers\processors are doing or what the software is doing. It's equivalent to charging per bag for rice, then charging by weight.... then charging by grain. This is how you increase your income with least effort. Don't change the product to be better... change the licensing model!!!

 

My latest puzzle involves a VMWare\Linux\Microsoft combo dish that is just giving me indigestion. I'm hoping that there are some xenolinguists amongst you that understand the language of M$ licensing.

 

Picture two servers, dual processors, 8 cores per processor (total 32 cores). The servers run VMware and host 14 machines (10 Windows Server and 4 Linux).

 

I have read countless creative accounts of licensing for processors, cores, servers and VMs. However, I am confused as to where the Linux machines running on a VMWare platform come into the licensing. None of the information I have waded through suggests that you don't need to include the Linux VMs in the equation. This implies that, although neither the VMWare or the Linux OS installed are M$ products, you still have to include them in the OSE count and license the cores used to run the non M$ VMs.

 

Am I missing something or are M$ now charging us to run other people's OS if they are within 20 feet of their immaculate conceptions?

 

Any thoughts? If not, make something up.... that appears to be the way most people are interpreting the M$ licensing.

[Boredguy]

Strange, information I've got only relates to licencing the Windows OS on the hypervisor, be it 1 standard licence per 2 Windows VM's, or datacentre depending on the number/features you want (quantity depending on number of cores/processors you have)

[Katy]

As far as I understand it, you'd want to licence 32 cores for Windows Datacentre to get the "unlimited Windows VM plus hybrid cloud benefit for Azure VMs" benefit, as you're licensing the host (to get the "unlimited guest VM Win Server licences" benefit) rather than the individual guest VMs. Otherwise I'd imagine it'd be giving each Windows VM a Server Standard licence, which would be more expensive.

 

We have 2 hosts, both Hyper-V, and just licence Datacentre for enough cores to cover both of them, ignoring whether some are running on Linux or not.

[Oaktech]

I swear to god the M$ licensing model is deliberately over complicated to push you down the 'screw it, i'll just license data centre, it's easier' route. Having said that though, Millgate's licensing gurus have always steered me right.

[dmj]

I don't understand why you think you would need to pay Microsoft to run linux on VMWare platform? I'm assuming your not doing any weird nested virtualisation.

The linux servers have nothing to do with the MS licensing model.

[Norphy]

Even with nested virtualisation, it's not going to give a crap about running running Linux on there, even if you're running linux on Hyper-V on ESXi.

 

As has already been said, the simplest way to license your virtual hosts if you're running Windows on them is to buy enough Windows licenses to cover the CPU cores on each host. Once you're running more than four or five Windows VMs on a host, Datacenter is usually the more cost effective way to go.

[mavhc]

You always licence the host. So if you have 2 Windows instances running on that host, you need a licence that covers 2 windows instances, ie normal windows server. If you have 4, you need 2 windows servers, at some point it's cheaper to have datacenter.

 

If you have a 2nd host that needs some more licences. If you temp move your VMs to a 2nd host, that's fine, if you perm move them you can transfer the licences, if you move them back and forth you need to buy them twice. (Unless you have SA license mobility)

 

You need at least 16 core licences, and more if you have more than 16 cores.

 

Only applies to concurrent running VMs.

 

Problem is when your 32 core server has Windows VMs and they all have to have 32 core licences even though they don't have 32 vCPUs, which is daft. So any machine with >16 cores should have Datacenter.

[JackCPickup]

8 2-core licence packs per 2 Windows VMs, when you get to around 10 VMs Datacentre is more cost effective.

[Dotdotdooda]

It's not that I think I should or I shouldn't include the Linux VMs in the M$ licensing. Every license calculator (and even some of the comments on this very post) avoid drawing attention to the Linux 'fly in the ointment'. They refer to OSEs. Operating System Environments. They do not state that this does or doesn't need to be M$ OS. The ambiguity of the OSE factor is what I am questioning. Is Linux not an OSE? If it is, are M$ counting ALL OSEs as licensable entities?

 

As Oaktech alluded to, this ambiguity may be entirely intentional to force excessive licensing. If there is documentation that specifically states that only M$ VMs need to be included, that's what I need pointing to (big neon light pointy thing would be best).

 

Without this specific guidance, I cannot calculate whether Data Centre licensing is the most cost effective method.

[Boredguy]

the MS licences are purely for the Microsoft OS's installed, not for linux

[JackCPickup]

Datacenter and Standard edition per-core licensingWindows Server 2019 Datacenter and Standard editions are licensed by physical core. Licenses are sold in2-packs and 16-packs.Minimum license requirements • All physical cores must be licensed • 8 core licenses per processor • 16 core licenses per server

https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/C/E/7CED6910-C7B2-4196-8C55-208EE0B427E2/Windows_Server_2019_licensing_datasheet_EN_US.pdf

 

 

Licensing is only concerned with Windows.

[mavhc]

OSE is because you might be running as a VM or a Container, which also kills containers as a thing for Windows Server for most people.