Server 2022 Licensing Question for VMware Hosts

Question

I have a cluster of three physical IBM VMware Server Hosts that provide a total of "24 processors" running ten Windows Server 2012r2 Datacenter VM guests that I want to upgrade to Server 2022. It's my understanding that "a minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server" so does that mean I need three 16-core licenses (one for each host) or could I use a single 24-core license for the entire cluster?

Answer 1

Each host will need a minimum 16 core license. You couldn't split a license across the three hosts.

Some general info

• Each host needs to be licensed.
• A minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server.
• Core licenses are sold in packs of two.
• Standard Edition provides rights for up to 2 Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed. For each additional 1 or 2 VMs, all the physical cores in the server must be licensed again.
• DataCenter Edition provides rights for unlimited Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed.

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

Answer 2

I still do not under stand this licensing model at all. I have 3 VMware hypervisors each with 2 sockets and each socket is 14 cores. So each host has 28 cores. How many standard licenses do I need. I also have the VM's spread though out each host. It's really like 10 VM with server standard I need to run.