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SQL Server 2012 Editions and High Availability Licensing

  • Article

One of the most frequent questions I get asked from customers is which high availability capabilities are available in which editions of SQL Server 2012.

Here are details of SQL Server 2012 Editions and the capabilities: https://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-editions.aspx.

For more information on SQL Server licensing, read: https://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-licensing.aspx

Comments

  • Anonymous
    January 09, 2012
    Thank you for the clarification as I was curious about that too when I migrate come release time.  

  • Anonymous
    April 12, 2012
    I didn't find any info about licensing the secondary replicas. Do we need licensing all the replicas? We have 4 servers 24 cores each one.(1 Primary and 3 secondary replicas) Thanks in advance!!!

  • Anonymous
    May 01, 2012
    See pages 11 and 12 of the Licensing Guide - download.microsoft.com/.../SQL_Server_2012_Licensing_Guide_Apr2012.pdf If your secondary servers are passive - additional licensing is not always required.  For example:  if you have a primary server that is properly licensed with lets say 24 cores, you can install a second instance of SQL on a second server (as long as it has no more than 24 cores) - this is called passive fail over rights. The key points about passive fail over rights are:  The secondary server has to be PASSIVE.  For each properly licensed server you are given rights to one secondary server (e.g. in a scenario where you have 1 primary active, and 3 secondary passive servers, the primary and 2 of the secondaries would need to be licensed). I hope this answers your question.  

  • Anonymous
    August 28, 2013
    BTW: This SQL 2012 Guide is horrible.  You cannot ready they dark gray text on the black background. www.google.com/url

  • Anonymous
    March 04, 2014
    Hi All , I had a question .If we have a SQL Server 2012 Std Edition Cluster in Active/Passive and we have  it log shipped to another server will we only need to license the active node ? Is the below blog comments also valid for SQL Server 2012 sqlblogcasts.com/.../licence-quot-experts-quot-sql-2008-standard-clustering-and-the-active-passive-requirements.aspx

  • Anonymous
    August 24, 2015
    of course, these links are auto filled with newest product data vs. 2012.  Not helpful.