Possible Duplicate:
Can you help me with my software licensing question?
As I understand it the current state of play with Per-processor or Microsoft licensing (such as SQL) is it is Per "Physical" processor. So if I have a server with two physical slots filled with two physical processors each with four cores I would need two SQL 2008 Licences.
If I was to install VMWare ESX (as an example) on that server then create a machine with four of the cores assigned to the machine presented as 4 Virtual CPUs; would I need one SQL 2008 Per-processor Licence or four?
As a secondary question: Has Microsoft released any official information on this anywhere?
Your understanding is correct.
MS makes this pretty clear in their special considerations document.
That is correct, you'd only need a single licence as you're not committing to using any cores from a second physical processor - even though the work would likely be split across both. If you gave the VM 5 or more cores in the situation you mention then you would need to buy a second processor licence.