Right now, the answer is usually<\/em> 1 per Proc license per virtual OSE (VOSE or virtual operating system environment \u2013 aka a guest OS in a VM) in the Hyper-V world. And here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n Take a 4 vCPU VM running on a host with 2 * quad core CPUs. 4 vCPUs = 4 logical processors. With hyperthreading disabled (or enabled in this case) this VM never runs on more than 1 physical CPU. We can license SQL Server by pCPU. So if it never runs on 1 pCPU then we can buy just 1 copy of SQL Server per proc. <\/p>\n What if this VM runs on a Hyper-V cluster? Do we need to buy 1 per Proc license per host? Nope. We buy the licensing for the VOSE (VM OS).<\/p>\n Let\u2019s change it up. What if the host has 2 dual core CPUs with no hyperthreading? Now we need to use a formula:<\/p>\n VOSE SQL Server Per Proc Licenses = A \/ B where<\/p>\n In this case the number of SQL Server per proc licenses = 4\/2 = 2. And that makes sense; the 4 vCPUs in the VM run on 4 logical processors, and the 4 logical processors are made up by 2 dual core CPUs.<\/p>\n Things are kind of easy right now with Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V (maximum of 4 vCPUs per VM). But what about Windows Server 8 or vSphere 5.0 where it increases to 32 vCPUs\/VM? Let\u2019s have a 32 vCPU VM running on 4 * 10 core Intel CPUs with hyperthreading enabled. Ouch, my head hurts already.<\/p>\n The formula gives us 32\/20 = 1.6 pCPUs. The VM can\u2019t run on 1.6 pCPUs; it will span 2 pCPUs (we always round up). That means the 32 vCPU VM can be licensed with just 2 SQL Server Per Proc licenses on this host.<\/p>\n Who wants to do division, fractions, and roundups? This might sound like hassle but it\u2019s good because it saves you money<\/u> and keeps you legal. In our most basic example above, the customer pays for 1 per proc license instead of 4. In the most complex one, they pay for 2 per proc licenses instead of 32.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s how to license a single VM. Things get a whole lot more complex when licensing many SQL VMs and then you start looking at buying SQL Enterprise\/Datacenter licensing at the host level, and then throw in virtualisation clustering where your SQL licensing impacts on your virtualisation design so you can save large amounts of money. I covered that one about a year ago and am happy to leave it there for the moment If your virtual machine has 4 vCPUs and it\u2019s running on a multiple CPU host, how many SQL Per Proc licenses do you need to buy (if you\u2019re not doing Server\/CAL)? Well this question just came up at work and we wanted to get it right for the customer. There are two sources of information. … Continue reading “Licensing A VM for SQL Server Per Proc in a Virtual Machine”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[183,192,195],"class_list":["post-11862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sql","tag-licensing","tag-sql","tag-virtualisation"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n
\n
![\"Smile\"](\"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/wlEmoticon-smile.png\")
<\/p>\n