Microsoft's licensing of its
Hyper-V hypervisor technology could double the licence fees in
smaller businesses that do not run Microsoft's Enterprise or
Datacenter site licence agreements.
Hyper-V allows users to run multiple virtual machines on the
same physical server. Each node can run Windows Server as long as
the business has bought a Windows Server licence. With the Standard
Edition, businesses have the right to run one instance in a virtual
machine with Enterprise Edition they have the right to run up to
four instances in virtual machines, and with Datacenter Edition
they have unlimited virtual instances.
Drue Reeves, research director at Burton Group, said,
"Microsoft's licensing limits the ability for users to maintain
their physical servers."
According to Reeves, when a user buys Windows Server standard
edition (which includes Hyper-V), they are allowed to run only one
virtual machine, and the ability to move the operating system (or
another Microsoft server software) is limited by a 90-day
"moratorium" when the virtual machine is moved to another physical
server.
This could cause problems in IT departments when servers need
maintenance. "The administrator cannot move the operating system
back for 90 days. If he does, he will no longer comply with
Microsoft licensing," Reeves warned.
Burton Group has evaluated the
impact of the Microsoft licensing and found that users need to
licence for any server the operating system could run on in a
virtual machine environment. For instance, if a user runs an
eight-node cluster where four nodes are configured to run Windows
Server 2008 standard edition servers, the administrator would need
to ensure the business has another Windows Server licence for each
physical server where that OS might move to if a cluster node
fails.
The licensing affects users buying Standard Edition licensing.
Mike Schutz, director of product management for the Windows Server
group at Microsoft, said, "Businesses can use the Datacenter
edition or Enterprise Edition licence if they want to move the
operating system freely between virtual machines."
How the licensing works
An office that consolidates two SQL Server 2005 systems onto one
physical machine using a two-node server with Hyper-V would have to
double its SQL Server 2005 licence investment. Since it is possible
that the SQL Server 2005 VMs could both be on one server at a given
time, you would need two SQL Server 2005 licences for each physical
server.
So to run two instances of SQL 2005, you would need four
licences. If you wanted to run them on a three-node physical host
cluster, you would need six licences. At that point, you would
qualify for a volume licensing discount. Volume licensing pricing
is available for Microsoft server applications sold in quantities
of five or higher.
Source: Burton Group
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