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Matt
Asked: 2013-10-02 01:53:22 +0800 CST

Microsoft licensing in a virtualized environment questions [duplicate]

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I plan on deploying two physical servers which will run VMware ESXi and have a number of questions regarding Microsoft licensing. To note, all the VMs on the servers will be configured to run in ESXi's fault tolerance mode. This means that all the VMs on the secondary server will run in lock step with the primary server.

  • Would I need to buy Windows Server CAL licenses for each VM on one server? For instance 1 ESXi server has 2 virtual Microsoft servers running on it. Each virtual server has 25 devices (or users) connecting to it. The devices (or users) connecting to each VM would be the same. Would I need 25 or 50 CALs for the physical server?
  • Would I need to buy additional Windows 2012 Datacenter Server licenses and the associated CAL licenses for the redundant ESXi server?

  • Would I need to buy additional SQL 2012 Standard (or Business Intelligence) server licenses and associated CAL licenses for the redundant ESXi server?

  • And although this doesnt pertain to a virtualized environment, when/how do CALs come in to play with IIS?

Thanks!

virtualization

2 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    Follow-up:

    I must admit, I'm struggling to find documentation on this. The only comment I can find on VMware HA is dated 2009:

    Whether people like to admit it based on what is convenient or not, even HA is not covered by Windows VLK licensing. A license is assigned to one physical machine. The abillity to "fail over", or vmotion around for maintenance is provided as a feature of Software Assurance. The loophole of course is to buy Datacenter edition for each host. Then you can pretty much do what you want.

    According to Microsoft, Windows Server Datacenter edition will allow you to run as many VMs on an ESXi server as you like (Standard allows one, and Enterpeise allows four).

    When using vSphere's FT or HA features, all you need to do is make sure that your licensing can handle the failover - i.e. if you're already running four VMs on one host, and a FT VM on another host fails, then you'll be in breach of the agreement (four running, plus one failed over).

    If in doubt, I'd strongly suggest contacting your Microsoft rep. A good link is here.

    Original answer:

    VMware HA does mean you technically have two servers running at the same time, however as far as Windows is concerned, it is only running once (the "HA" is transparent to the OS - you can't address the standby instance unless the master fails). As a result, you should treat each HA VM as a single entity.

    Your CALs (and any software licences for that matter, Microsoft or otherwise) are tied to your Windows VMs, not to your physical ESXi hosts, so you'll need to purchase as many CALs as you need for your VMs.

    Think of your ESXi servers as your racks (loosely speaking), and your Windows VMs as physical servers. Two VMs running on different hosts is the same as having two physical servers running in different racks. Two VMs on the same host equals two servers in the same rack, so in both cases, you'll need CALs for both servers.

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  2. You need to contact a MS Reseller and talk out your situation's specifics... The details usually matter!!

    With that noted:

    1. Each VM needs to be licensed. You can buy Server 2012 Standard licenses to cover 2 VMs at a time (both have to be on the same hardware); or Datacenter covers 2 processors per license.
    2. CAL licensing is per VM typically, though there are some exceptions...
    3. Licenses can be moved from one piece of hardware to another voluntarily, but not within 90 days of a previous move. Licenses can be moved non-voluntarily without restriction (ie, hardware failure always allows you to transfer a license).
    4. HA and Redundant VMs are considered a "duplicating an existing instance" which requires a license of it's own. This technically applies even if the duplicate is not running but is able to be run.
    5. IIS CALs are covered by your Windows CALs if they're internal users. External users only need CALs under certain conditions, most notably when you're using some kind of IIS authentication.
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