Windows Server 2016 Licensing Vmware Esxi

Each vsphere license has a certain cpu capacity that you can use to license multiple physical cpus on esxi hosts.

Windows server 2016 licensing vmware esxi.

With 2016 datacenter licensing you ll get unlimited ose. So that s either 4 x standard licenses or 1 x datacenter licenses. In today s post i ll be showing you how to install windows server 2016 with desktop experience on an esxi 6 5 u1 host managed by a vcsa 6 5 u1 instance. This step by step how to guide is aimed at readers who have yet to install a windows os on a vmware hypervisor.

Majority of our vms will be running with guest os as windows server 2019 2016. For windows server 2016 version licensing model a ll physical cores in the server must be licensed. From windows server 2016 onwards licensing for all editions standard and datacenter will now be based on physical cores per cpu a minimum of 16 core license sold in packs of 2 so a minimum of 8 licenses to cover 16 cores is required per each physical server. Servers are licensed based on the number of processor cores in the physical server.

With 2016 standard licensing you ll get 2 ose per standard license. I am new to the infrastructure world i wanted to understand how does windows server licensing work on esxi. Esxi hosts are licensed with vsphere licenses. A virtual machine is never licensed.

A license is always assigned to the physical host. For windows server 2016 standard you are only licensing 2 x virtual oses and that does not grant you license mobility rights to move those virtual servers between hosts. Vsphere desktop that is intended for vdi environments is licensed on per virtual machine basis. I understand i ll have to licenses each physical core.

A minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor. Currently we are running our vms on hyper v and are planning to migrate to vsphere. A minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server.