which edition of Windows server should I purchase?

Product supplies - Asked by tarek on Friday, 23 July, 2021 - 14:33

We have established a new charity and not for profit organisation. Our website is about to be ready to launch. We decided to purchase our windows server license so that no extra fees are added by the hosting company, and this will reduce our monthly paid fees. The hosting company is offering a product of 256GB SSD, 3 CPUs and 8GB RAM. As I went through available Windows server editions, I got confused; which edition should be purchased especially the standard Windows server edition requires a minimum of 8 core licenses for each physical processor. Also, which SQL server edition should be purchased? Lastly, I don't know if we should purchase Exchange server license. If we should, which edition should be purchased? Thus, through this question I'm asking about three servers' edition: Windows Server, SQL Server, and Exchange server - if we should purchase it. Expert guidance at this stage is more than appreciated, especially for people with "high technical knowledge" like us : ) Best regards,

Reply by Paul Beaton from Lava Lizard on Friday, 23 July, 2021 - 15:27

Hi Tarek, If you are only going to use the Windows servers for hosting your website then I would suggest hosting it on Linux with no license fees at all, and using a standard web hosting package - this would be much more cost-effective. Depending on how your website has been built though, it may already be too late for this. The person who built your website would need to advise you on specifications and hosting options - otherwise the website may not work correctly if you choose the wrong options for hosting. Paul

Reply by Jake Gardner from Gunners Office Equipment on Friday, 23 July, 2021 - 15:41

The real question is what do you want to use your server for and why are you getting a server. I just setup a charity and we just use free non-profit editions of Micorsoft 365 rather then having a server, then everything is shared on SharePoint. But it really comes to use the use case. Without knowing what you are trying to achieve then I cannot really offer any guidance. As Paul said if you were going to try and host a website on that would not be a good solution and those specs are way overboard.

Reply by Paul Beaton from Lava Lizard on Friday, 23 July, 2021 - 16:35

Hi Tarek, In this case you should ask the website development company - if they are building complex websites for Windows servers, then they will know about the licensing requirements - as I imagine that they would need to have purchased licenses themselves. We only work with Linux web servers, and so unfortunately I can't give any advice on WIndows servers. Paul

Reply by Steve Bungay from Envision IT on Friday, 23 July, 2021 - 17:06

Hi Tarek, First I will answer your question. 1. You need Windows Server Standard Edition. It is sold on the basis of number of cores and CPUs. You need to license at 16 least Cores Per Server and 8 Cores Per CPU. In addition, all users connecting to server should have either Windows User or Device CAL license (not required for Web access). 2. MS SQL Server for Website purpose will be the 'Core' edition. You need to purchase a minimum of 4 Cores but the entire physical or virtual machine will need be licensed for all the cores. Coming back to your requirement of website / web application: There are several other things involved with hosting website and web application. This requires a very good IT set up and monitoring, cyber protection, back up, static IP etc. You will be better off with a hosting provider than hosting the server just for website. Even when you have other uses for server, my recommendation would be to go for a hosted server so that you are adequately protected from infrastructure point of view. You can contact me for a friendly chat on - 0425 732 510 or steve@envisionit.com.au

Reply by Steve Bungay from Envision IT on Saturday, 24 July, 2021 - 11:37

You are welcome! I look forward to receiving your call or email.