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ktwebb68
Contributor
Contributor

vCPU and proc licensing at the guest level

Will run a VM on a host with 2 quad cores, or 8 logical CPU's.

The questions being asked of me and which I cannot answer off the top of my head, or google search or search here even though surely it's been discussed, is how to go about licensing software on the guest that is licensed per Proc.

Vmware is supported via the app but they license via processor, not cores, not vCPU or logical CPU's. So now the LOB is asking about how to request licensing from the vendor.

So if I assign two processers when configuring the VM, even though this is vCPU, would I assume for the sake of the discussion, two physical processors when licensing.

Which would make sense until the line of business starts hammering me with questions about performance and do we really have two processors, or two cores of one processor etc..

Just want to get my ducks in a row before I start getting the angled questions. Thanks in advance.

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3 Replies
weinstein5
Immortal
Immortal

It actually depends on the software company - most in my experience will license to the number of virtual cpus assigned to the vm - others will assign to the number of physical cpus or cores in the esx host - this really bites if you running a single virtual cpu vm on an quad quad core cpu esx host you would have to license either to 4 physical cpus or 16 cores depending on the licensing model

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RParker
Immortal
Immortal

Most vendors are changing the license for per SOCKET not per CORE/PROC. You might want to ask your software company how they license. It's not up to VM ware, since a machine is machine, virtual or not.

Some licenses are also tied to a particular MAC. But virtual environments are not handled any different than physical. Supporting them may be a challenge, but there is no evidence to support that a particular product won't run in a VM, it just doesn't run as fast on a native physical host.

ktwebb68
Contributor
Contributor

Yeah, I am not worried about if it will run or not. I've been fighting that battle and winning 99% of the time for almost 4 years. Sometimes we have just chosen to not tell the LOB's or Developers.

But now I've moved from the server support role to architecture and design and licensing from the vendor perspective has become something I have to deal with.

Good advice by both of you. I'll get with our Cognos contact. thanks.

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