Question on HyperV

Im pretty sure i have the answer but cannot say 100% for sure to my manager. If you buy 2008 Std x64 you get 1 hyper v licence. My boss is saying does that mean the machine can run another OS virtualised free. I dont think he is right. You get 1 licence for hyper v, but still sure you will need seperate licence for the OS you want to virtualise too. Hope this makes sense what im asking.

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dynamik

Check this out: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/hyperv-faq.aspx#LicensingInformation

Jordus

Standard edition gets 1 virtualized instance

Enterprise gets 4

Datacenter gets unlimited

It doesnt have to be virtualized on Hyper-V, though. Choose your posion (hypervisor)

Graham_84

Yea i get that much, But what im saying is, for example, if i buy enterprise edition and get 4 hyper V licences. I still have to individually buy 4 copies for windows to put into these Vm's?

astorrs

Graham_84 wrote: »

Yea i get that much, But what im saying is, for example, if i buy enterprise edition and get 4 hyper V licences. I still have to individually buy 4 copies for windows to put into these Vm's?

No, for every 1 copy of Windows Server 2008 Enterprise you will get the rights to do the following:

Install Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise on the host to run Hyper-V.
Install Windows Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise within 4 virtual machines on that same host.

If you buy 2 copies of Server 2008 Ent and apply the license to that same host (i.e. don't use it elsewhere) you can run an additional 4 (up to 8 ) virtual machines.

If you buy one copy of Server 2008 Standard you can run a single Windows Server 2008 Std virtual machine in addition to the host.

If you buy one copy of Server 2008 Datacenter per physical CPU you can run an unlimited number of Windows Server 2008 Std/Ent/DC virtual machines on that same host.

The sweet spots for a 2 CPU server are 1-2 VMs use Standard, 3-8 VMs use Enterprise, 9+ VMs use Datacenter.

RobertKaucher

At least for standard edition the only caveat to this, though, is that the physical machine running Hyper-V may not run other services like Active Directory. It's only to be used to host the Hyper-V virtual machines in this case (I read this on an MS FAQ but cannot find it to back myself up). Downgrade rights for VL agreements also tranfer to the VMs in question. So you could run Hyper-V on the physical and then opt to install server 2003 as the VM.

See this page where it states clearly you get a free virtualized instance with standard edition.
http://www.microsoft.com/hyper-v-server/en/us/default.aspx
You should also see the DOC files on this site:
Microsoft Volume Licensing - Microsoft Licensing for Virtualization

Edit: I have found documentation that MS changed the licensing to allow you to leverage the physical machine as well. This means installing services on it is allowed.