Server 2008 Datacentre Edition R2 Licensing
Hello I am trying to get this done before the end of the financial year so any help wold be greatly appreciated. I am trying to get the following from Donortec: Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacentre Edition R2 Service Pack 1 (Includes Software Assurance and 1 Processor License) I intend to run this in a VMware setup with 2 servers each with 2 processors. I will probably only be using 3 instances of server 2008. Will this license cover me? Looking at the information from the donortec page at: http://www.donortec.org/microsoft/windows-server-2008-datacenter-edition I can see "Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition R2 requires a minimum of two processors." So surely they wouldn't give out a license that couldn't really be used especially since Microsoft ordering limitations prohibit me from getting several copies. Thanks Michael
Reply by Steve Constantinou from Emerging IT Pty Ltd on Tuesday, 28 June, 2011 - 10:58
From how i read it it states "its licence allows one server to run an unlimited number of Microsoft Windows Server 2008 instances". Hope this helps.
Reply by from Conosco Australia Pty Ltd on Tuesday, 28 June, 2011 - 13:52
Hi Michael, Datacentre Edition is licensed per CPU. For the scenario you are discussing, you would actually need to license each server for 2 CPU's (eg. a total of 4 licenses). Once this was done you would then be able to run an unlimited number of VM's on each of the two VMWare host servers. I wasn't aware that there was a limitation on the number of these licenses that you could purchase... An alternative, given the number of VM's that you are talking about would be Enterprise Edition which allows a maximum of 4 VM's per licensed server. You would need to license each server though (eg. total of 2 licenses). A note regarding licensing of virtualisation platforms. If you are building your platform using shared storage (which I hope you are as it is really the only resilient way to build it) then you need to license the OS component on a per physical server basis. As an example, if you purchased a single copy of Enterprise Edition this would allow you to run 4 VM's on a single physical server, however if you then migrated two machines to the second physical server (eg. using VMotion) then you would no longer be licensed as you would require a license for each server running VM's. Microsoft made a change a while ago allowing you to reassign Volume Licenses 'on the fly' so that for example, if you have a single Exchange license and a single Exchange server then you can move this between physical hosts and the license moves with it, however when you are dealing with OS licenses that allow for multiple VM's, you need to license each physical server (unless you plan on running all of your VM's on a single box which would kind of defeat the purpose of the environment you describe). Feel free to contact me if you require any further information regarding the virtualisation environment or licensing within it as we have a wealth of experience working within this space. Dom Johnston Conosco - effortless computing
Reply by nrha on Tuesday, 28 June, 2011 - 14:54
Thanks for the comprehensive reply. I now understand. "I wasn't aware that there was a limitation on the number of these licenses that you could purchase..." The Limitation comes from Donortec, they tell me that you can only request a "donation" of 1 of each type of server product, this is what stops me just getting multiple licenses. Thanks again for the quick reply
Reply by Grant Laing from Blended IT Solutions on Tuesday, 28 June, 2011 - 23:12
Hi Michael, yes, have into this limitation from donortec for our clients before. If you are are only going to run 3 vm's it would be better to just get the enterprise version of windows server instead, or license the datacentre under the charity licence open value license scheme instead, not as cheap as the donortec option, but this would save you licence for another server you may need. We can help with this if needed, feel free to contact us, if you need to.