Microsoft datacentre licensing and VMware

[queensbridgeitt]

Hi

Got a question with regards to Microsoft Licensing and VMware ESX hosts.

We have a Microsoft schools agreement and a lot of our windows servers are running standard edition. One is running enterprise. All on physical servers.

We are virtualising some of our Windows Servers and schools agreement pricing is very favourable if we buy a datacentre license. Its about £70 and it means we can run an unlimited number of Microsoft server VM's in VMware. compared to enterprise which is only £5 cheaper but only allows you to run a maximum of 4 guests.

Question, I understand that a Windows license for Data centre would be per processor, so if I have 2 physical processorsin each esx host I need to get 2 X datacentre license per ESX host, Is that correct?

If I purchased 6 data centre licenses (3 ESX hosts with 2 physical processors in each), what version of Windows server can be used, I understand its only standard or enterprise, can someone confirm this? Does this cover Windows XP also?

Thanks

[AntonVZhbankov]

No, this license covers Windows Server only. XP and Vista are not included.

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VMware vExpert '2009

http://blog.vadmin.ru

[VladN · Accepted solution]

>Question, I understand that a Windows license for Data centre would be per processor, so if I have 2 physical processorsin each esx host I need to get 2 X datacentre license per ESX host, Is that correct?

Correct.

Licensing Microsoft Windows Server 2008 to Run with Virtualization Technologies

Page 13:

Instead of licensing the servers with enough Windows Server 2008 Standard licenses to meet the largest number of simultaneously running instances of Windows Server, the processors in the servers could be licensed with Windows Server 2008 Datacenter. This would allow an unlimited number of instances of Windows Server to run simultaneously in virtual OSEs. Because the servers have two processors, two Windows Server 2008 Datacenter licenses would be required for each server. Windows Server 2008 Datacenter licensing provides the flexibility to move instances of Windows Server without concern about maintaining license compliance.

>If I purchased 6 data centre licenses (3 ESX hosts with 2 physical processors in each), what version of Windows server can be used, I understand its only standard or enterprise, can someone confirm this? Does this cover Windows XP also?

Anton is correct - Datacenter license covers only Server OS.

Some info regarding desktop OS licensing on VMware - VMware FAQ: Microsoft Windows Vista Licensing in a virtual machine for VDI.