Question MS Windows Server 2019 licensing on a virtual machine

[jaydee]

All,

I intend to have two clustered physical servers with single CPU, 8 cores/16 threads each (Intel Xeon 4110), running on VMware vSphere ESXi 6.7 Essentials Plus.

I need to run two VMs running Windows 2019 server on this cluster (and at leaset one other Linux VM).

Will one 16-core license cover me, for two instances of Windows Server?

Thanks!

 

[mikeymikec]

The quickest, most definitive way to answer this question is to contact MS.

Personally I doubt that one licence will cover a real PC and a virtual one; inside the VM is the notion of a separate computer which could be hosted on any machine.

Server licensing might include a provision for VMs though, no idea.

I would be interested in learning the definitive answer to your question though.

 

[Chiefcrowe]

Same here, I would like to know. To me on first glance it seems like you would need 2 Server standard licenses for the VMs.

 

[quikah]

As far as I can tell it would work

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/cloud-platform/windows-server-pricing

Each Server standard license allows 2 instances.

 

[jaydee]

Contacted Microsoft. Here was the answer:

8x 2-core packs or 1x 16-core pack for Host A (1-CPU server)
8x 2-core packs or 1x 16-core pack for Host B (1-CPU server)

Because of the "Minimum License Requirement" (see link from quikah above), this applies to sinlge CPU Hosts that have anywhere from 2 to 16 cores each.