WINDOWS SERVER 2016 LICENSING
The per socket licensing of Windows Server 2012 (at least two-sockets are licensed for
any node and purchased in two-socket increments) struggles in two major ways for
modern deployments:
Modern processors have an increasing number of cores, with the new many-core
processors featuring more than 50 cores per socket. This would result in staggering
numbers of VMs running on hosts with a single datacenter license, which does not
make business sense for Microsoft.
Cloud providers such as Azure and other hosters operate services based on vCPUs
assigned to VMs where no actual physical sockets are visible, which makes any
licensing based on sockets incompatible. A move to per socket licensing enables
consistent and simple licensing across hybrid environments.SQL Server 2012 made the switch to per core licensing, and this continues with
Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016. Both Standard and Datacenter are sold
in two-core pack licenses with the following rules:
Every socket must be licensed for at least eight cores (four two-core packs).
Every server must be licensed for at least sixteen cores (eight two-core packs).
Every core must be licensed.If you compare this to the 2012 model, it is consistent; every server had to be licensed
for at least two sockets, and most servers had processors with eight cores or less.
Therefore, provided your servers have processors with eight cores or less, your
licensing costs for Windows Server 2016 will be the same as with Windows Server
2012 R2. If you have processors with more, you should work with your Microsoft
account representative, as there may be options to make the transition seamless. For
customers with licensing and enterprise agreements, there will be grants of eight two-
core packs for each existing two-socket Windows Server 2012 R2 license. If processors
have more than eight cores, then the deployment may be under-licensed and
additional two-core license packs may need to be purchased.
For Datacenter, an unlimited number of OS instances running Windows Server
continue to be granted. However, the stacking of Standard changes. For Windows
Server 2016, two OS instances running Windows Server are granted if all cores are
licensed, but this is different. In Windows Server 2012, if you had a four-processor
server, you would buy two copies of Standard (two processors each) to cover all
sockets, and each came with two OS instance rights, giving four in total. Additional
two-socket licenses could be purchased to get two more OS instances. For Windows
Server 2016, if you have a four-socket server with eight cores each (or fewer cores—
every socket still has to be licensed for eight cores, remember), you would need to buy
sixteen two-core licenses (the financial equivalent of two old licenses) but you have
covered the cores only once and you get two Standard OS instances for Windows
Server, half the number of OS instance rights. If you wanted to stack Standard to get