Windows Server 2019 Datacenter licensing for VMware?

Question

If you have VMware for hypervisor, and you have a bunch of Windows Server guests on VMware, how many licenses of Windows Server 2019 Datacenter do you need? Is it one per host server? or one per processor per host server? If i had seven host servers and two procs each server, would i need 14 Datacenter licenses?

Answer 1

Licensing is the same regardless of the hypervisor being used. Licensing is based on host core count.

• 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.
• AVMA keys can be used only when the host is DataCenter edition

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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Answer 2

Hi,

Licences and each package gives you the licenses for 2 Windows based VMs.
 Since Windows 2016  each package contains the right to run it on 16 pCores. If your pCPUs contains more Cores you have to buy additional 2 CPU Addon licenses.

Best Regards,