Forum Discussion
Will LCOW count as Hyper-V containers for the licensing model?
The document you originally linked to is a licensing guide for Windows Server 2016, not the version 1709 release - as such, it's no longer accurate.
In terms of whether LCOW containers count... no, they don't. That rule is in place because Standard edition only includes the rights to virtualize two instances of the OS on top of the physical host, for every time you license the cores on the host. Since LCOW isn't using virtualized Windows Server underneath it, there's no applicability, and no hard limit as there was when Hyper-V Containers first shipped and could only run Windows. (But that limit still applies if you're using Hyper-V Containers on Windows).
The Standard edition (note, not version, but edition), only supports two virtualized instances of Windows Server for every time the cores within the physical host are licensed (whether those instances are used for containers or not is immaterial), whereas Datacenter edition supports unlimited virtualization. This isn't a licensing rule for Hyper-V, it's a licensing rule for the OS - so regardless of the hypervisor you use, those are the rules you must follow to license virtualized instances of Windows Server. For your Windows Server workloads, then no, Standard edition will quickly become cost prohibitive if you're using Hyper-V for containers, and you'd want to use Datacenter edition.
For Linux, however, containerize your heart out. You license the host, and Standard edition will suffice, and you can run as many VMs of Linux as you want.
Let me know if this doesn't clarify the rules for you.
Wes Miller
Research Analyst
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Thanks for your answer. It comes down though to whether LCOW containers are seen as Hyper-V containers or not, since they're a kind of special implementation using LinuxKit as a small linux kernel to run linux based payloads through Hyper-V. No real VM gets spun up in the background, so I'm not sure if this is equivalent to "running as much Linux VM's through Hyper-V" as you'd like. I guess so?
The document you originally linked to is a licensing guide for Windows Server 2016, not the version 1709 release - as such, it's no longer accurate.
In terms of whether LCOW containers count... no, they don't. That rule is in place because Standard edition only includes the rights to virtualize two instances of the OS on top of the physical host, for every time you license the cores on the host. Since LCOW isn't using virtualized Windows Server underneath it, there's no applicability, and no hard limit as there was when Hyper-V Containers first shipped and could only run Windows. (But that limit still applies if you're using Hyper-V Containers on Windows).