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dingding
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Windows licenes in virtual environment

say if i have only one windows 2003 server standard VM, run in a 2 node ESX cluster, it can vmotion between 2 nodes anytime, how many windows 2003 standard license i should buy?

how about in a three node ESX cluster?

---- Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.
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Jasemccarty
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"Officially", you'd need a Windows 2003 Standard license for each ESX host that you migrate it to.

That being said... if you have 2 (W2K3 Standard) VM's, with one on 1 host, and 1 on another host, as long as you don't have them both running on the same host at same time, you would only need 1 W2K3 license per host. If there was any overlap, you'd need 2 licenses per host.

This is where W2K3 Enterprise (in small environments), and W2K3 Datacenter make the most cost sense.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Jase McCarty - @jasemccarty
SWCS833
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

Just for comparison, we are buying DataCenter CPU Licenses for our 4 Boxes, which have 2 CPU, so 8 DatCenter Licenses. This will allow us to run as many windows VMs as we want on our ESX Servers, but it does not include the CALs. I am not sure what pricing you get from your reseller, but in education, it is like $260 a CPU for Datacenter.

But as the other reply stated, each VM needs to have a valid Windows License. If you purchase Enterprise Edition, you can than run 4 other VMs in addition to the 1 other VM with Enterprise.

dingding
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officially, i agree on with you. i guess many VM users run their windows VM illegally, Smiley Wink.

---- Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.
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dingding
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windows edu license in only tenth of the list price, MS has a good calculator for VMs,

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/calculator.mspx

below is a excerpt from: http://download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9/68964284-864d-4a6d-aed9-f2c1f8f23e14/virtualization_whi...

Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition • Each software license allows you to run, at any one time, one instance of the server software in a physical OS environment and up to four instances of the server software in virtual OS environments on a particular server.

so i can run up to four, not five as you say.

---- Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.
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Jasemccarty
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But as the other reply stated, each VM needs to have a valid Windows License. If you purchase Enterprise Edition, you can than run 4 other VMs in addition to the 1 other VM with Enterprise.

Keep in mind, this is 4 total licenses that can be run at a time as VM's with the "host" license either 1) used to provide the OS for the virtualization layer (VMware Server, MS Virtual Server 2005 R2, etc), or 2) not used at all.

It isn't a exactly a buy 1, and get 4 free thing... It is a buy 1, and you can run 4 on top of it, if you don't do anything else with the 1 you buy.

The street price (which most can get a better deal on) is about $2,300 for 2003 R2 Enterprise (unlimited processors), and about $2,800 for 2003 R2 Datacenter (per processor). Where the savings makes the most sense, is when you have an environment with a significant amount of guests, as Defiant365 mentioned, and you want to run as many as you want. 12 Windows guests on a 2 way ESX host, with 2003 R2 Enterprise licensing will cost you 3 x the price of 2003 R2 Enterprise. 12, or 16, 20, whatever Windows guests on a 2 way ESX host, with 2003 R2 Datacenter will cost 2 x the price of 2003 R2 Datacenter. So as the number of guests grows, the cost goes down when using 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition.

Now SQL 2005 on the otherhand is too expensive to do that, at $25,000 per processor for unlimited guests with SQL 2005.

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Jase McCarty - @jasemccarty
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Jasemccarty
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The reason I used the "officially" term, is it is an interpretation from Microsoft.

And I say that toungue in cheek, because in the past 15-20 years or so, everytime I talk to Microsoft people about licensing, and how things are "spelled out", often times the wording is so ambiguous, that depending on how they read it (at the time of negotiation), it can be steered one way or the other to sound the way they want it.

I've had 2 different MS licensing guys tell me 2 entirely different things at the same time, and agree with each other in the same sentence.

So "officially" is relative to how Microsoft wishes to interpret it at whatever point in time (to suit their objectives for the engagement).

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Jase McCarty - @jasemccarty
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dingding
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is the CAL license the same price for the three windows edtion?

if they are the same or not big difference, it really make sense to buy datacenter edition.

---- Idleness is not doing nothing. Idleness is being free to do anything.
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Jasemccarty
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I haven't had to purchase any, but I haven't seen anything that requires 1 type of CAL for Standard, 1 type for Enterprise, and 1 type for Datacenter.

The versions of 2003 are tied to their capabilities (as well as virtualization rights).

Jase McCarty

http://www.jasemccarty.com

Jase McCarty - @jasemccarty
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