SQL VM licensing

Question

Experts,

Understand that this is not a platform for licensing , but just wanted to understand for VM licensing how to check the requites as per mentioned :

To license individual VMs using the Per Core model, customers must purchase a core license for each v-core (or
virtual processor, virtual CPU, virtual thread) allocated to the VM, subject to a four-core license minimum per
VM. For licensing purposes, a v-core maps to a hardware thread.

Is there a query or setting we can check on the VM or SQL to come to a conclusion how many vcores are there for licensing as this is quite confusing

Answer 1

Hi,

When the SQL Server service starts, it will record the detected hardware, memory and CPU information in the errorlog. Similar to the record below.

SQL Server detected 1 sockets with 4 cores per socket and 8 logical processors per socket, 8 total logical processors; using 8 logical processors based on SQL Server licensing. This is an informational message; no user action is required.

For different SQL Server editions,the available processors are also different. Please check the Compute capacity limits by edition of SQL Server for more details.

Answer 2

You set that information when you configure your VM.

Please see:
https://kb.vmware.com/s/article/1010184