windows 2003 licenses

[verschijning]

Hi,

My supplier told me that it is not possible to run more than 4 windows 2003 standard edition servers on 1 ESX machine.

Can anybody confirm this (or deny) and tell me what licenses I have to use when I want to install more then 4 windows 2003 servers?

Thanks

[Asher_N]

If I have a server with 2 procs, I need a 2 proc license of the MS OS if installed on bare metal.

What if I have a 2 proc ESX, and every VMs are going to be defined as single procs, do I still need a 2 proc licence of Windows?

[oreeh]

If you are using the datacenter licensing scheme you need a 2 proc license.

If using enterprise or standard it doesn't matter since these are not licensed per CPU.

[Asher_N]

Tought as much, but it's worth asking

[gogogo5]

But also consider what apps you'll be putting on that VM with 2 vCPUs. If you put something like SQL Server on then this is charged per CPU - physical or virtual. So look at the apps too.

[Asher_N]

That's another interesting question. Do you license something like SQL per physical of virtual CPU?

And why would Windows be different?

Message was edited by:

Asher_N

[oreeh]

When using the datacenter licensing model this doesn't mean that you have to run 2 vCPU VMs.

You are allowed to run Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter with as many vCPUs as you want / as ESX permits.

[oreeh]

SQL has two different license models - per user/connection and per CPU.

MS has a licensing model for SQL enterprise similar to datacenter - just download the MS use rights doc.

[JDLangdon]

I have 10 Esx hosts running 80+ Windows VM's.

Jason

[paulo_meireles]

I have 10 Esx hosts running 80+ Windows VM's.

I guess you mean 80+ VMs each. That's quite nice. May I ask what physical hardware you're using?

Our servers are HP DL585 with four single-core Opterons each. So, technically, running more than 32 vCPUs (4 cores, 8 vCPUs per core) on these machines breaks our support. That's why I mentioned it. Of course, a quad-core 4-way machine could run up to 128vCPUs and still be supported...

Paulo