Windows Server 2019 Datacenter licensing for VMware HA Cluster

Question

Trying to understand the licensing I need for 2019 Datacenter license installed in a VMWare HA Cluster using a SAN. We have 2 Physical servers running VMWare and one SAN as the datastore. All Guest systems will utilize the 2019 datacenter license and will be stored in the SAN. The 2 VMWare physical hosts are setup as an HA Cluster and the guests can only run on one host at a time. We have 32 cores running on each Physical Server and I need to know if I only need to by a 32 core license or 2-32 core licenses. I know I need CAL's and this is not a part of this question. My thought is that because the guests are actually installed on the SAN and are only running on one active host at a time, I would only need 1- 32 core license. Any input on this would be great.

Update: I know they sell the license in 16 core packs, so if I reword this it would be do I need 2-16 core license or 4- 16 core license to meet this scenario?

Answer 1

Each host will need to be licensed,

Some general info

• Each host needs to be licensed.
• A minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor and a minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server.
• Core licenses are sold in packs of two.
• Standard Edition provides rights for up to 2 Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed. For each additional 1 or 2 VMs, all the physical cores in the server must be licensed again.
• DataCenter Edition provides rights for unlimited Operating System Environments or Windows Servers containers with Hyper-V isolation when all physical cores in the server are licensed.
  https://download.microsoft.com/download/7/C/E/7CED6910-C7B2-4196-8C55-208EE0B427E2/Windows_Server_2019_licensing_datasheet_EN_US.pdf

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