Hello setecastronomy
The increase in the number of required licenses when using a VMWare cluster is due to the way Microsoft’s licensing rules apply to virtualization and multi-server environments.
When you create a VMWare cluster with your servers, each physical server needs to be fully licensed for all its cores multiplied by the maximum number of virtual machine couples that could run on it, as you correctly calculated. This is because Microsoft’s licensing rules require that each physical server running Windows Server Standard must be fully licensed for the maximum number of virtual machines it could potentially host.
In a non-clustered environment, you are allowed to run two virtual instances of Windows Server on each fully licensed physical server, as per the licensing terms. However, when you create a VMWare cluster, the licensing requirements are applied to each physical server in the cluster, taking into account the potential maximum number of virtual machines that could be running on it.
Best Regards,
Hania Lian
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