Why are all Azure server templates all Datacenter editions?

Question

Hey guys,

I am new to Azure and trying to spin up new servers. We do not have licensing for datacenter editions, but notice that all of the templates in Azure are datacenter. Does anyone know why standard and enterprise are not options in the templates? Do you forcefully have to change them over to remain compliant with your licensing or something.

Thanks,

Answer 1

The redirect question here is why would you want to go out of your way figuring out how to deploy a non-DC edition in Azure? There are two licensing models:

1. Licensing bundled as part of the VM fee, in which case you have right to use a datacenter instance of Windows running in Azure;
2. Licensing provided as part of the hybrid benefit, in which case you also have right to use the datacenter editions provided by Azure templates.

You do not loose anything by deploying datacenter edition. So the bottom line answer is simply deploy the provided datacenter edition version of Windows, and select the licensing model you wish to use.

For clarity sake, you cannot simply take any version of Windows Server Standard you already own and port it to a VM running in Azure. You must own a license type that qualifies for the hybrid benefit.