SPLA and Virtual Windows server

[pkriek]

All,

We are an hosting provider and therefore using SPLA licenses.
Now we want to offer Virtual serevrs to customers.
Hardware is HPDL580G5 with quad processor and 64 Gb RAM. And the software is VMWae ESX server.

On configuration above we want to place 40 virtual servers, but How many SPLA windows authenticatet licenses must a charge to my customer??

Lets say a customer wants 1 virtual server with 1 virtual processor? Should I charge 4 processor licenses (physical) or just 1 (per virtual) licenses

Thanks for the feedback!

[oehTie]

All,

We are an hosting provider and therefore using SPLA licenses.
Now we want to offer Virtual serevrs to customers.
Hardware is HPDL580G5 with quad processor and 64 Gb RAM. And the software is VMWae ESX server.

On configuration above we want to place 40 virtual servers, but How many SPLA windows authenticatet licenses must a charge to my customer??

Lets say a customer wants 1 virtual server with 1 virtual processor? Should I charge 4 processor licenses (physical) or just 1 (per virtual) licenses

Thanks for the feedback!

the answer should be in the license agreement you got when you bought the SPLA licenses. Have you checked those documents?

[gjtje]

A cpu is a cpu, be it physical or virtual. So when your guest has 1 virtual cpu you need 1 CPU license.

You should note that using a datacenter license on the host allows an unlimited amount of guest installations, I don't know if it says you actually need to install Windows on the host machine.

[Merlijn]

Are you referring to authenticated or unauthenticated? For unauthenticated: use the Datacenter license (for each processor) and you can run unlimited unauthenticated guests on the machine, no need for additional OS licenses. Authenticated much be licensed for each machine (if I'm correct), but it sometime is cheaper to by SALS insteads of processor licenses (all depends on number of authenticated clients and number of machines)

[Tim.Bracquez]

A cpu is a cpu, be it physical or virtual. So when your guest has 1 virtual cpu you need 1 CPU license.

SPLA licenses / fysical CPU

So when you have a dual core or quadcore, you only need one CPU license.
I've just contacted econocom (a reseller for SPLA licenses from Microsoft) about this 'problem' and they said it was a license on a fysical CPU.

[gjtje]

Yes, Windows is licensed per CPU (fysical/virtual) not per core like most other software.

[bramveen]

Hi All,

Dit klopt. Windows is licensed per CPU (socket). So this is how you should license it.
Unauthenticated == not authenticated in Active Directory use Windows Server 2008 Datacenter Edition this gives you unlimited virtual instances.

Authenticated == Windows Server 2008 Standard edition allows for 1 virtual Instance and Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Edition allows for 4 virtual instances.

Does this answer your question?

Thanks

Bram,

[oehTie]

Microsoft represented on this forum, didn't know that. Thanks for the clear answer Bram

[frankske]

bram: just to be clear, if someone has a VMWare (or Xen or whatever virtualisation technology) on a single socket server, and runs 4 Win 2008 Web Editions on that server. How many and which SPLA licenses do they need?

[bramveen]

You could use 4 webserver licenses at +/- $40 or you could use a datacenter license at around $50 . The datacenter becomes cheaper at 6+ VM's.

The way I remember things is that we license per CPU socket.

Thanks

Bram

[Merlijn]

Correct (although pricing is in EUR or do you have $ pricing as well (give me the $ pricing in that case )

[frankske]

@Bram: ah, ok, that's what I thought. I must have misinterpreted Tim's message then

So when you have a dual core or quadcore, you only need one CPU license.

.

I am spla partner, so I do have correct prices