Microsoft® SQL Server® 2012 Bible

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Part I: Laying the Foundations

Licensing Differences

The SQL Server 2012 release introduces signifi cant changes to the licensing model than

previous versions. The two licensing options, Server + CAL (Client Access License) and

socket-based are still offered. The major differences revolve around the way processing

power is licensed for the core-based licensing option and the licensing options available for

each edition.

Core-Based Licensing

As discussed previously in this chapter, under the ”Selecting the Edition“ section, the main

editions of SQL Server 2012 have been reduced to three: ”Enterprise, Business Intelligence

and Standard Editions“. Only Enterprise and Standard Editions of SQL Server 2012 are avail-

able for core-based licensing.

In previous releases of SQL Server, core-based licensing was based on the number of

physical processors and was independent of the number of cores. With SQL Server 2012,

each of the processor cores requires licensing. For example, to license a SQL Server 2008R2

Enterprise server with two quad-core processors, only two processor licenses were required,

one for each physical processor. This type of licensing was referred to as per-socket licens-

ing since it was based on the number of physical processors occupying a processor socket in

the motherboard.

To license this same server running SQL Server 2012 Enterprise, licensing for eight cores is

now required since each processor has four cores for a total of eight cores.

Core-based licenses are sold in two-core packs with a minimum of 4 core licenses required

for each physical processor. This means that at a minimum you need to purchase two of

these two-core packs for each physical processor occupying a processor socket. Table 3-6

provides the licensing matrix for different processor core confi gurations.

TABLE 3- 6 Licensing Matrix for Different Processor Core Confi gurations

Cores Two-Core Packs Required Total Licensed Cores

124

224

324

424

636

848

12 6 12

16 8 16

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