Licensing : For a setup with approximately 200 VMware virtual machines across 10 physical hosts. My intention is the ‘pin’ the 2012 servers to 6 of the 10 hosts. For the ESU provision - Should I opt for 6 x 32 core ESU licenses or a single 192 core ESU license? The only reason I can see for 6 x 32 is to easily reduce the license as 2012 severs are upgraded / decomm'd But if I do 6 x 32 I will have to manually / arbitrarily apply the license to 33 servers at a time, that has to relation to where they'll phyiscally exist?

Hi, Welcome to Microsoft Q&A community forum! You need to associate ESU physical core licenses with every hosts, so the 6x32 option is the most correct. As for the VMs, they must be arc enabled, then the VMs must be associated with the host's physical core license. For example you create a physical esu core license for host01 with 2 16 core pack=32, this will license the host Then from the list of eligible vm (that are arc enabled)you check all the virtual vm on this physical host01, and add them to the same physical license of the host, so this will certify this vm are on this host01. So the vm have relation with the host they reside on. Remember that esu licenses trough Azure Arc can be purchased also as payag, so you can deactivate when no more needed. Hope this helps Cheers Luca Please "Accept as Answer" and Upvote if the answer provided is useful, so that you can help others in the community looking for remediation for similar issues

Azure Arc ESU licensing for multiple physical vmware hosts

Eccup Reservoir 66

Licensing: For a setup with approximately 200 VMware virtual machines across 10 physical hosts.
My intention is the ‘pin’ the 2012 servers to 6 of the 10 hosts.

For the ESU provision - Should I opt for 6 x 32 core ESU licenses or a single 192 core ESU license?

The only reason I can see for 6 x 32 is to easily reduce the license as 2012 severs are upgraded / decomm'd
- But if I do 6 x 32 I will have to manually / arbitrarily apply the license to 33 servers at a time, that has to relation to where they'll phyiscally exist?

Monalla-MSFT 12,861 Reputation points

2023-11-16T15:51:22.7033333+00:00

@Eccup Reservoir - Just checking in to see if the below answer helped. If this answers your query, do click "Accept as Answer" and click "Yes" for the same, which might be beneficial to other community members reading this thread. And, if you have any further query do let us know.

1 answer

Luca Lionetti 3,211 Reputation points

2023-11-15T18:28:36.3466667+00:00

Hi,

Welcome to Microsoft Q&A community forum!

You need to associate ESU physical core licenses with every hosts, so the 6x32 option is the most correct. As for the VMs, they must be arc enabled, then the VMs must be associated with the host's physical core license.

For example you create a physical esu core license for host01 with 2 16 core pack=32, this will license the host

Then from the list of eligible vm (that are arc enabled)you check all the virtual vm on this physical host01, and add them to the same physical license of the host, so this will certify this vm are on this host01. So the vm have relation with the host they reside on.

Remember that esu licenses trough Azure Arc can be purchased also as payag, so you can deactivate when no more needed.

Hope this helps

Cheers

Luca

Please "Accept as Answer" and Upvote if the answer provided is useful, so that you can help others in the community looking for remediation for similar issues
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Eccup Reservoir 66 Reputation points

2023-11-15T18:31:51.22+00:00

Thanks Luca, that kind of helps.

But consider the nature of a virtual environment - Virtual Machines move around between hosts all the time, due to maintainance or performance allocation.

If I have many vms on multiple hosts; how so I (accurately) assign a VM to a particular license in the arc license management?

Luca Lionetti 3,211 Reputation points

2023-11-15T18:50:40.7633333+00:00

Ok I understand the problem, then you could create a physical license with all the cores, assign this license to all the hosts and all the VMs. So you are covered for all servers. When you remove one of the servers you can change the number of licenses from the esu panel, since they are editable.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-arc/servers/deliver-extended-security-updates

Hope this helps

Cheers

Luca

Please "Accept as Answer" and Upvote if the answer provided is useful, so that you can help others in the community looking for remediation for similar issues

Eccup Reservoir 66 Reputation points

2023-11-15T19:16:20.8166667+00:00

Luca thanks for the reply, I appreciate you trying to help.

But I can't seem to get clarity on this, to keep it simple. Let's assume I have 6 physical hosts, with 32 cores each, and 200 virtual machines - which could exist at any time on any one of those those 6 physical hosts.. right?

Logically, it seems like I should create 6 x ESU licenses for 32 cores each. Because they are licenses for physical hosts - right - and I have 6 of them.

So which is best / correct;

Option 1

Create 6 x 32 core physical licenses and randomly allocate 32 servers to each ESU license in the Arc portal - and forget about the issue of servers moving around.

Option 2

Create 1 x 192 core physical license - allocate all ~200 server to that one ESU license.

If I do this, and reduce the server count in future - I don't see an easy way to reduce the physical cores in an ESU license.

Thanks in advance

Luca Lionetti 3,211 Reputation points

2023-11-15T19:32:58.79+00:00

Option 2

Create 1 x 192 core physical license - allocate all 6 hosts and 200 server to that one ESU license.

After you provision an ESU license, you need to specify the SKU (Standard or Datacenter), type of cores (Physical or vCore), and number of 16-core and 2-core packs to provision an ESU license. You can also provision an Extended Security Update license in a deactivated state so that it won’t initiate billing or be functional on creation. Moreover, the cores associated with the license can be modified after provisioning.
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Azure Arc ESU licensing for multiple physical vmware hosts

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