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Sashi
Contributor
Contributor

Windows Virtual Machines Licensing

Could someone clear my simple doubt rather stupid doubt:-)...how does windows virtual machines licensing work? if we have 50 windows VM's.. do we need to buy 50 licenses from Microsoft?

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MattG
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Expert

Yes or you could buy MS Datacenter licenses for each CPU socket in your ESX hosts and use as many Windows Server licenses as you'd like.

DC may be more expensive up front, but as you get better consolidation ratios, you can quickly start saving money.

-MattG

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Sashi
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Sorry... im not much aware of Windows Licensing as my basic background is Unix...

Could you please elaborate with some example ?

Say for example --If i have quad core ESX server and 10 windows virtual machines on esx server then would buy server license for each core ? or 10 windows server licenses?

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MattG
Expert
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You can do either or. If you have a single Quad core CPU then you could buy 1 DC license and be done from a Windows Server licensing perspective or you could do it the traditional way and license each VM's Windows OS.

-MattG

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