Windows 2016 Core Licensing FAQ
A very busy month for me and also traveling to take a break from work. Finally to sit down and compose which got confused by many of my co-workers.
It came across to me many people are confused over the windows 2016 licensing. I have previously explained how it is licensed here.
However, there are cases where customer like to know what will be the break-even point if they are running on Windows 2016 Standard licensing instead of Windows 2016 Datacenter edition.
Someone has also done up some scenario to explain the cost and break-even point here. Basically, the 13th Windows VM that you run on a physical server will make more sense to run Windows 2016 Datacenter edition license. That is if your consolidation is high which is subject to your server specifications as well as VM workload.
Just to give you the explanation from my post previously, whether it is a standard edition or datacenter edition, the way you license in cores doesn't change. But in the standard edition, you are only limited to run two OSIs in every box with every Windows 2016 Standard edition license you use on all cores. What question comes next is how do I run more than 2 OSI? Well, you have to license another set that will allow you to run 4 OSIs. So two Windows 2016 Standard edition license used on one physical server will allow you to run 4 OSIs. The caveat, you need to license all the cores and minimum still applies.
Here is the example:
Windows Server 2016 Standard License, Two-Core Pack: $111.00
Minimum per server:
This allows you to run two OSIs for licensing all the cores. To run more OSIs in increment of 2, you will need to license the core again. Such as 4 OSIs, you will incur $1,776 x 2 = $3,552.
It came across to me many people are confused over the windows 2016 licensing. I have previously explained how it is licensed here.
However, there are cases where customer like to know what will be the break-even point if they are running on Windows 2016 Standard licensing instead of Windows 2016 Datacenter edition.
Someone has also done up some scenario to explain the cost and break-even point here. Basically, the 13th Windows VM that you run on a physical server will make more sense to run Windows 2016 Datacenter edition license. That is if your consolidation is high which is subject to your server specifications as well as VM workload.
Just to give you the explanation from my post previously, whether it is a standard edition or datacenter edition, the way you license in cores doesn't change. But in the standard edition, you are only limited to run two OSIs in every box with every Windows 2016 Standard edition license you use on all cores. What question comes next is how do I run more than 2 OSI? Well, you have to license another set that will allow you to run 4 OSIs. So two Windows 2016 Standard edition license used on one physical server will allow you to run 4 OSIs. The caveat, you need to license all the cores and minimum still applies.
Here is the example:
Windows Server 2016 Standard License, Two-Core Pack: $111.00
Minimum per server:
- A server with two CPUs on 16 cores each. There will be 32 cores in total.
- Minimum to license is 8 cores per socket and 16 cores per servers. (not to worry unless you still have 8 cores per processor CPU or you running one CPU server with a total of less than 16 cores)
- Windows Server 2016 Standard edition license, Two-Core Pack: $111.00 x 16 packs = $1,776.00, you will incur $1776.
This allows you to run two OSIs for licensing all the cores. To run more OSIs in increment of 2, you will need to license the core again. Such as 4 OSIs, you will incur $1,776 x 2 = $3,552.
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