Windows Server Standard 2022 Virtual Machine Licensing

Question

Hi, sorry if this kind of question has been asked before but I'm struggling to understand VM licensing.

We have 2 identical Citrix XenServer hosts with 1 CPU with 12 cores on each.

With these, we were sold 4 x Windows Server 2022 Standard - 16 Core License Pack

We were told we can only run 4 virtual machines in total, is this correct?

It is my understanding from what I've read that:

• if we had 4 VMs with 4 virtual cores each on one host then the other host would not need licensing and only 2 licenses required
• if we had 3 VMs on one and 1 VM on the other, then we would need 3 licenses
• with 4 licenses, we could run 8 VMs, no matter which host they were running on?

How many Server 2022 VMs can I run with our 4 licenses? And if we bought another license, how many?! Any clarity on the situation greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Answer 1

Any clarity on the situation greatly appreciated. each host with 1 CPU with 12 cores on each. we were sold 4 x Windows Server 2022 Standard - 16 Core License Pack
How many Server 2022 VMs can I run with our 4 licenses?

Based on this info 8 virtual machines.

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

Answer 2

Hi

the link here will help:

https://wintelguy.com/windows-per-vm-licensing-calc.pl

Input the exact numbers for CPU's and cores per physical host and also the vCPU's you will need for each VM. This will give you an accurate total for what licenses you require.

Hope this helps,

Thanks

Michael Durkan

• If the reply was helpful please upvote and/or accept as answer as this helps others in the community with similar questions. Thanks!

Answer 3

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.

with that being said if you were clustering the two hosts then each host needs to be licensed for the max number of VMs that could be on it even for one minute.

We have 2 identical Citrix XenServer hosts with 1 CPU with 12 cores on each. With these, we were sold 4 x Windows Server 2022 Standard - 16 Core License Pack

Here you could run 4 on one host or two on each host.

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

Answer 4

According to the calculator in https://wintelguy.com/windows-per-vm-licensing-calc.pl, it's irrelevant the number of hosts in the cluster, it's the number of VM's that matters.

I did several scenarios changing the number of hosts and the per VM result is always the same.

It would be good if someone authoritative could clarify this, as many seem to believe that adding hosts to the cluster to improve resiliency means you have to duplicate licenses, which seems nuts.

Answer 5

Since you purchased four of the 16 core packs already, this gives you the rights for each host to support all four VMs, so you are good to go.

If you have two hosts, and each has a single CPU with 12 cores, you can license the hosts each for 16 cores to support two VMs, but this will not give you the rights to move the VMs between the hosts.

If you license each host for 32 cores that would give each host the rights to support all four VMs.

Windows Server Licensing Explained

The below information is customer facing, and publicly available and may be forward to your customers. This explains Windows Server licensing including the link to the Windows Server 2022 Licensing Guide to back up this info.

There are two paths for licensing Windows Server. First is the classic way where you license all physical host(s) that the VM(s) may ever need the ability to spin-up on. Second, which is a newer option as of October 2022, is licensing the VMs themselves.

Classic, licensing the physical Hosts.

Windows Server 2022 Core licensing

Windows Server 2022 licensed based on the number of cores on the host. In order to license this you will need to know:

• Hosts - Number of Hosts, each with 

	○ CPUs - Number of physical processors for the host(s)

	○ Cores - Number of physical cores per Processor on the host(s)

• VMs - Number of Windows VMs for the total solution

Note: for bare metal installs, VM count would be considered as one

This option does not require Software Assurance

Licensing Windows Server per Virtual Machine

You can now license Windows Servers for virtualization by licensing each VM based on the following rules:

• License Windows Server Standard

• Licenses must have active Software Assurance (SA)

• You must license all VMs for their virtual core count

• VMs with less than 8 cores must be licensed for 8 cores

• Must have a minimum of 16 cores licensed for the virtual machines

VMs may only reside within your server farm

Windows Server 2022 Licensing Guide - October 2022

Flexible Virtualization Benefit Guide

Have a great day,

Deron Braun

Systems Engineer Support Microsoft