Licensing MS SQL Server on VMware

[whitetr6]

Can someone help me wade through all the crap and get to the bottom line: If I have a dual quad-core server running ESX, and I build a SQL Server on it licensed by processor, and that guest system has 2 VPUs (equivalent to 2 cores or half of one physical proc), do I need 1 SQL license, or 2?

Guess what...I have received BOTH answers from Microsoft (i.e. conflicting answers).

Thanks for any help,

Mark

[Dave_Mishchenko]

Your discussion has been moved to the Virtual Machine and Guest OS forum.

Dave Mishchenko

VMware Communities User Moderator

[RParker]

That's because it depends on your SQL version. SQL 2005 still requires a license PER instance. SQL 2008 you can run as many Virtual instances as you want with 1 license, provided they are on the SAME hardware.

That's the answer, and since Microsoft pretty much left themselves hanging with SQL on Hyper-V, they can't retract it for VM Ware, so it works the same way.

[whitetr6]

Wow, so that's yet another new answer. At least it's the most economical I've heard so far. Do you know of anywhere that is in writing from Microsoft?

Thanks again

[weinstein5]

Microsoft’s old licensing model did require buying SQL/Exchange licenses for every ESX server in the cluster but in 09/08 they changed the licensing – you know can license the software by CPU for the cluster – check out - http://www.vmware.com/solutions/whitepapers/new_msoft_policies.html - it has links to the Microsoft documentation

Do not know if this a third or fourth answer -

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[msemon1]

Reading this doc it appears that with SQL 2008 you don't have to pay for multiple SQL instances as with SQL 2005, however, you still must pay for a SQL License for each vCPU for SQL 2005 or SQL 2008.

How are you licensing per cluster as opposed to per vCPU?

Mike

[weinstein5]

you would license it per VM and the number of vCPUs the VM is configured with - so if your running 2 dual vCPU VM hosting SQL Server on a 5 node cluster you would only need to buy 2 2-cpu SQL licenses and not a license for each node of the cluster -

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[whitetr6]

Today I came across this, which has given the most clear answer so far.

Thank you all for your input on this very confusing issue

Mark

[01Ryan10]

This applies to Microsoft SQL 2008, not sure about previous versions.

The formula below applies to processor licensing...

1. of virtual processors in your VM where SQL 2008 is installed / # of cores per processor (regardless of dual or single processor) * # of threads per processor = # of processor licenses you'll need for one installation of 2008 SQL

Example....

SQL 2008 installed on Windows 2008 in a VM. The VM is hosted by a dual quad core xeon with hyper threading enabled (VMware detects as 16 processors).

I have allocated 8 virtual processors in the SQL VM / 4 cores per processor * 2 threads per processor = ( 8 / 4 * 2 = 1). So I need a single processor license.

You can find a lot more on this subject at the following link, and then download the "SQL Server Licensing Guide.pdf" document.

[ealaqqad]

Well, the licensing of SQL in virtualization enviornment will depend on the way you are purchasing licenses is it processor based or instanse based as Microsoft is offering both. A good explanation of both for sql 2005 & sql 2008 as well a link to where it pointed out on Microsoft website can be found on the following post:

Be Smart Not A Retard & Save huge on Microsoft Licensing with Virtualization

I hope this help some one, if it does please reward points.

Enjoy,

Eiad Al-Aqqad

System X & Storage Technical Specialist

Founder of http://www.VirtualizationTeam.com