2012/R2 ESU licensing for Arc-Enabled servers' clarification

Question

I am trying to get further clarification on the vCore vs pCore and Datacenter and Standard licensing.

For example, I have 15 2012 VMs that I cannot consolidate across my physical infrastructure with a vCore count of 64.

As I understand it, if you select a Virtual Core with Standard edition that can only be used for 2 Virtual Machines. Is this correct? or can I create a 64 vCore Standard ESU and cover all 15 of those VMs?

Answer 1

Christopher F, thank you for posting this question on Microsoft Q&A.

Physical CPUs (pCore) implies that it is being purchased based on the underlying host machine which will have multiple VMs on it. In this case, if the Host OS is Standard version, there can be a maximum of 2 Windows 2012 VMs running on it. If the Host OS is Datacenter version, you can have unlimited number of VMs on it. This is suitable if you have consolidated VMs to run on a single Host.

Virtual CPUs (vCore) implies that you are applying the license directly to VMs (and not on underlying host). This is suitable for scenarios where your VMs are hosted on different host/environment.

For more information, please review the following links:

• Scenario based examples: Compliant and Cost Effective Licensing
• Video tutorial: So You're Still Running Windows/SQL 2012. Now What?

Hope this helps.

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