Licensing of windows server 2022 on vmware

Question

We have a brand new vmware cluster with 4 hosts and 128 cores.

We have installed 16 VMs with windows server 2022 on this cluster and we have used the standard edition.

Our reseller wants us to pay for datacenter licenses although we mean that we are good with 8 standard licenses. They cover 16 cores each and two VMs on each license.

Our reseller says that this is not correct because when we have the possibility to vmotion the VMs as we like on the different hosts we have to multiply by 4 since there are 4hosts.

We have not been able to find that information anywhere.

What is correct here?

Answer 1

Doesn't sound like it. I'm not sure how the 128 cores are split between hosts but each host needs to licensed for all cores, and then again for each pair of virtual machines that could be on it unless using a DataCenter host.

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Answer 2

Yes, all cores need to be licensed plus each host needs to be licensed for the max VMs that could be on it (even for one minute)

A DataCenter license provides for unlimited hosting but does not provide unlimited activations of host product key. In order to make use of unlimited hosting you should install a DataCenter host and use AVMA activations. This also provides the benefit of allowing activation ranging from Server 2012 R2 to Server 2022 both editions.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/automatic-vm-activation

--please don't forget to upvote and Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--

Answer 3

So just to be clear, our present setup is not OK and 8 standard licenses will not cut it?

We have to multiply these standard licenses by 4?

Answer 4

Yes, unfortunately the problem is that you have to license the physical cores one more time for each pair of VMs you add. Meaning you don't have to add many of them before the datacenter license is the way to go.

Thanks for your response.