Hyper V licensing

[autumn]

g day all

Please point me to somewhere in the Microsoft universe for licensing of Hyper V. I know I have had discussions on here before about it and what I took away was.

ROK/OEM licenses are useless unless you just want to license the hardware, because of the likelihood of third party apps.

CSP licenses are the way to go as you can use the same license on the hardware (hyper V only) as well as the client licence. (Can I use it for 2 client VM's?). Working from https://www.trustedtechteam.com/pages/windows-server-calculator I only need 1 CSP license plus 16 users CALS for 2 client VM's. I did think I needed 2 server licenses, one for each client.

I've said basically the same as above to my supplier and they have responded with
"All Windows Server Standard licenses from ROK/CSP/OEM include entitlement for 2 x Windows Server VMs & Hypervisor.
There is no difference in Hypervisor / VM entitlement or functionality."

Thanks for your help and hopefully I can respond back to my supplier.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Your supplier is correct...OEM/ROK and Volume/CSP both work.....Windows Server Standard...and above....support Hyper-V role, which allows 2x guest instances. So you only need 1x Windows Server license (count your cores...the lowest you can get is 16x cores...so that's often what you start with for small businesses) And you'll need a user CAL for each client.

When you set up a Hyper-V host....it should only....ONLY....do the Hyper-V role. The guests are what does the work for the network...file sharing, print sharing, app servers, authentication and other infrastructure roles..the DC stuff. Never...put a role on the Hyper-V host.

However...consider "disaster recovery". Remember...OEM licenses live and breath with the hardware they were sold with. You do not transfer an OEM license to hardware other than what it was born on. So....think about "disaster recovery". The bare metal server that runs your Hyper-V and its guests....has a meltdown, you need to stand up a new bare metal server to take over...you can't migrate your Hyper-V install or guests to that new server. For businesses that have higher up disaster recovery needs..."business continuity"...using top notch services such as Datto Alto/Siris....or Axcient (similar to Datto)...the idea of them is the backup appliance is basically a little VMWare server combined with a NAS...and it can "virtualize" the latest backup in case your server caught fire. That backup appliance is.."new hardware". The Windows licensing will balk.

Way back over 20 years ago, we stopped doing OEM licenses, always selling Volume Licensing. OEM licenses are not portable. Important devices for your clients...need to be portable. (see above disaster recovery for one example). So...the slight cost increase of Volume/CSP licensing...is easily, hands down, no brainer...well worth it.

 

[Sky-Knight]

OEM/ROK licensing is locked to the hardware it's sold on, and cannot be moved. This legally prevents restore operations via something like DattoBDR.

CSP licensing has portability (all the features of the old Volume and Select licensing), and the additional benefit of once being delivered lives forever in the M365 tenant. (I love self documenting systems) This keeps the installation materials and keys in the licensing section of M365, always available, never lost.

Please note, CSP licensing comes in two flavors. Perpetual, and subscription. The former doesn't have upgrade assurance, the latter does! The latter qualifies for hybrid benefit in Azure, which is one of the big money savers, and technically is required if you're hosting Windows Server on any platform you don't own.

16 cores minimum are required to be purchased for bare metal.
8 cores minimum are required to be purchased for a VM.
VM licensing is only possible if you do not own the platform the VM is running on! If you own the platform you must license the entire platform.

Standard includes the host OS / Hypervisor license, and two guests. You are NOT ALLOWED TO INSTALL ANYTHING ON THE HOST. It must be Hyper-V only. As soon as you isntall anything else, one of your guest entitlements is burned on the host.

To get more than 2 guests, you can replicate the licensing. So say the host has 32 cores, you'd buy two 16 core standard packs, that's 2 guests included. 64 cores worth, now gets you 4 guests.

Datacenter has unlimited guests.

I think that's about all of it that matters....

 

[autumn]

Thanks @YeOldeStonecat and @Sky-Knight

I got it in my head that OEM/ROK wasn't worth the hassle, which basically that's what you are saying.

Can I clear this up? I think you have answered it above however so I'm clear.

bare metal server with 16 core
1 x server 2022 Standard16 core license

So with that license be able to be used to license, the host and both guest OS'? So all 3 are server 2024 Standard with 1 license or do I need to license the OS in the guest separately?

@Sky-Knight, I do read what you and @YeOldeStonecat slightly different, @YeOldeStonecat says roles (which I take as server roles) and you are saying anything installed. So that would mean monitoring or remote access or even protection. This is where it possibly comes unstuck as I have monitoring/remote access on the hosts so then do I need 3 licenses to be complying? (1 Host and 2 guest).

Thanks again.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@autumn Microsoft says roles in the documentation, but I've been audited and dinged if I had anything active in the add/remove list too beyond drivers. This roles limit technically includes file / print services, which I know zero people that adhere to that since shares on the host is pretty much how everyone maintains installation images.

So you're free to play a little loose with that, just for the love of all that's good and right in the world don't install any production workloads on the host! I've got a nightmare on my hands right now with a customer that deployed their ERP server to the host, and now he wants the whole mess in Azure so he can close his office down, and ditch his hardware. Migrating it to Azure has been... infuriating to say the least!

And yes, 16 core server, one 16 core license back for Server 2022 gives you the host, and two guests worth of Server 2022 environments.

Note, this doesn't mean you can't have MORE VMs! You can run as many as you want! But your Windows Server Standard 2022 license gives you the host, and two guests of that specific platform. You can deploy other products per their licensing as well!

We've never been dinged for having RMM tools on the host, so that's not a concern either.

From what you've said here, it sounds like the licensing you have listed is correct!

 

[autumn]

@Sky-Knight Thanks. oh didn't even think of shares. thanks for the info.

I haven't had anyone audited for over 20 years. but back then it was a nightmare, not sure we got a "nice" auditor but if we seemed to be trying to do the right thing they told us "buy this" and it's all fine.

Oh, I did think I needed a Server standard license for every 2 guests but from what you are saying it's for (basically) every Windows server guest, so example, if had a Win 10 guest, as long as that was licensed Win 10 in the guest and I had 3 guests (2 Win Server, 1 Win 10) all I would need is 1 x Win server std (XXX cores), and 1 x win 10 XXX licenses. I thought I would need 2 x Win Server std plus the Win 10.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Correct, you aren't licensing VM count, you're licensing instances of Windows Server. You can run as many VMs as you want! But if you want more instances of WIndows Server, you need more Standard. And it's not about "an extra copy", it's about duplicating the core count.

IE, a 32 core server, needs two 16 core packs to license it ONCE. That gives you the host, and two VMs. If you want FOUR Windows Server 2022 instances, plus the host that platform needs 64 cores of licensing!

On the Windows 10/11 side of things, beware! Only the Enterprise edition has virtualization rights these days. Fortunately, the CSP program has those too, and they aren't too expensive.

That's the thing that made me always cringe when someone wanted VMWare before. You're forking over for VMWare and then you're licensing the entire host for Windows Server just as if you planned to roll out Hyper-V. Not a cheap choice!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

You can install your RMM agent on the Hyper-V host (as well as each guest)...since you need to remote into the Hyper-V host to...."do stuff".
Some people put antivirus on Hyper-V hosts, others...don't.

What you don't do is...have it as a "file server" for the network. You don't have it as a print server on the network. You don't install applications like Quickbooks on it....nor some database like SQL. You don't run DCPROMO on it and make it a DC, thus...no DHCP or DNS server services. Just....Hyper-V host does no jobs other than...host guest instances.

 

[autumn]

Again thank you,

This has cleared up some of the murkiness that I had around the licensing. And hopefully others will find this helpful.

And you would hope that they wouldn't change the licensing across boarders (well similar markets).