Windows Server 2019 Datacenter Licensing

Question

Hi guys, is it at all possible to apply a Windows Server 2019 Datacenter license on VMs running on a non-microsoft virtualization host using MAK keys? The virtualization host in this case is Nutanix AHV.

If yes, could anyone share the steps to actualize this? At the moment, I only have access to the MAK keys and hence the question.

Thanks very much.

Answer 1

Some general info (regardless of hypervisor used)

• 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

If you used 2019 DataCenter as the host hypervisor then you could also make use of AVMA keys and license guests ranging from 2012 R2 to 2019 standard or datacenter.
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/automatic-vm-activation#avma-keys

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