another two OS instance rights, you would have to license every core again, buying
another sixteen two-core licenses. This is a major change; however, while this sounds
daunting, very few organizations stack Windows Server Standard on servers with more
than two sockets. Nevertheless, if you are one of those organizations, you should start
conversations with your Microsoft account representative now. Stacking on systems
with sixteen cores or less will work the same as Windows Server 2012.
Microsoft has a good licensing document that I recommend reading:
[http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/ 7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-](http://download.microsoft.com/download/7/2/9/ 7290EA05-DC56-4BED-9400-)
138C5701F174/ WS2016LicensingDatasheet.pdf
Table 1.3 shows the number of two-core packs required, based on the number of
sockets and the cores per socket in a system. It also indicates that extra licensing for
Windows Server 2016 may be required (denoted with an exclamation point), if you
have two sockets or more with more than eight cores per socket.
Table 1.3: Licensing Cost Changes for Windows Server 2016 vs. Windows Server
2012 R2
PHYSICAL CORES PER PROCESSOR
2 4 6 8 10
Procs per server 1 8 8 8 8 8
2 8 8 8 8 10 !
4 16 16 16 16 20 !Microsoft 2016 Licensing Datasheet
Choosing the Version of Hyper-V
Given the information in the previous section, determining which version of Hyper-V
is required is a fairly simple decision. While it is technically possible to mix Standard
and Datacenter in a single cluster, this makes tracking licensing complex. I use the
following criteria to decide which version of Hyper-V I need in a virtual environment:
If the virtual machines will all be running non–Windows Server operating
systems, use the free Microsoft Hyper-V Server.
If the environment will be running only a few virtual machines with no plans to
expand and with limited mobility required, then the Standard edition of Windows
Server can be used. However, with the new stacking changes in Windows Server
2016 Standard, it is likely to be used only where very low numbers of virtual
machines are needed with 16 cores or less, unless you are willing to incur
additional costs above the current Windows Server 2012 R2 costs.
If there will be more than a few virtual machines with future growth possible and
full mobility of virtual machines required, use the Datacenter edition of Windows
Server.