Windows Server 2019 Standard Licensing in Virtual Machine

[Sasolusi]

Dear Partner Community Members,

Please help to provide information regarding Windows Server 2019 Standard licensing in Virtual Machine.

Customer have 1 (one) physical server.
Number of physical processor = 2 (two).
Number of core in each physical processor = 8 (eight).

They plan to deploy 2 (two) Virtual Machines on this physical server.

If they are using Hyper-V for virtualization.
Then they need to purchase Windows Server 2019 Standard = 16 cores.

If they are using other than Hyper-V for virtualization, example: VMware ESXi.
Then they need to purchase Windows Server 2019 Standard = 16 x 2 = 32 cores.

Is it a correct understanding?

Thank you.

[Sasolusi]

Hi @JanoschUlmer,

Thank you for the enlighten.

Refer back to my scenario:

• Using Hyper-V for virtualization : the customer need to purchase Windows Server 2019 Standard = 16 cores.
• Using VMware ESXi for virtualization : the customer also need to purchase Windows Server 2019 Standard = 16 cores.

Kind regards,

Sasolusi

[JanoschUlmer · Accepted solution]

Hi @Sasolusi 

Actually there is not any difference, it does not matter if the VMs run on Hyper-V or VMware, the same number of licenses are required in both scenarios.

The official licensing terms are located here: Commercial Licensing Terms (microsoft.com)

Disclaimer: the below is not a binding licensing statement and based only on my understanding of the technical scenario as you described it - when in doubt please always refer to the official licensing terms applicable to the customer contract, see link above.

Note that Microsoft mentions in above referenced license terms that each server, and server is defined as the hardware, needs a certain number of licenses, and on the licensed server you can run a certain number of instances ("OSE").

In case of VMware ESX, you still assign the Windows Server license to the hardware, even when you do not actually install Windows Server on that - the assignment is more a thing you do "on paper" in this scenario. 

So, for both the Hyper-V and ESX, the license is assigned to the hardware, and if the sufficient number of core licenses is obtained to cover the server (hardware) two virtual instances can be used with Windows Server Standard on this hardware. The only difference between Hyper-V and ESX is that on a server that runs Hyper-V you might already have a Windows Server license assigned for the physical Windows Server instance where the Hyper-V role is enabled and therefore you might not need an extra license for the VMs.

Again, the license terms referenced above, mention for this scenario that customer can run one additional instance on the physical host if this host machine is only use for running the VMs - and not e.g. used as fileserver or DC or something else.