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KCurrent9
Contributor
Contributor

SQL Licensing 2014 / 2016 concerns

Hello VM Community ,

I stumbled across the Microsoft document and it looks like they are changing the SQL licensing again with VMware.

From what I am understanding is any SQL server editions 2014 and above will now start counting the differently between VCPUs and vCores.  I can relate to Microsoft on doing this for the physical presence but IMO physical SQL tier is in the minority overall in the IT world today. In VMware no more can we set the vCPU count as needed for each VM . This is a very convenient option as we use the vCPU hot plug option in all our VMs and add memory as needed . However you cannot adjust the vCores on the fly using the hot plug option.

Anyone experience this problem with their high tier SQL environments having too many vcpus vs cores?  see table below for clarification. This seems to only affect Standard editions not Enterprise.

Any thoughts on this change ?

Compute Capacity Limits by Edition of SQL Server

SQL Server EditionMaximum Compute Capacity Used by a Single Instance (SQL ServerDatabase Engine)Maximum Compute Capacity Used by a Single Instance (AS, RS)
Enterprise Edition: Core-based Licensing1Operating system maximumOperating system maximum
DeveloperOperating system maximumOperating system maximum
EvaluationOperating system maximumOperating system maximum
Business IntelligenceLimited to lesser of 4 Sockets or 16 coresOperating system maximum
StandardLimited to lesser of 4 Sockets or 16 coresLimited to lesser of 4 Sockets or 16 cores
WebLimited to lesser of 4 Sockets or 16 coresLimited to lesser of 4 Sockets or 16 cores
ExpressLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 coresLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 cores
Express with ToolsLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 coresLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 cores
Express with Advanced ServicesLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 coresLimited to lesser of 1 Socket or 4 cores
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parmarr
VMware Employee
VMware Employee

KCurrent9 , I believe this question is more on the Microsoft side of things as VMware would still be issuing licenses based on per virtual machines basis and does not consider the numbers of cores of virtual CPU's assigned.

Sincerely, Rahul Parmar VMware Support Moderator
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