Forum Discussion
Hyper-V Server 2022
Free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product update
Since its introduction over a decade ago in Windows Server 2008, Hyper-V technology has been, and continues to be, the foundation of Microsoft’s hypervisor platform. Hyper-V is a strategic technology for Microsoft. Microsoft continues to invest heavily in Hyper-V for a variety of scenarios such as virtualization, security, containers, gaming, and more. Hyper-V is used in Azure, Azure Local, Windows Server, Windows Client, and Xbox among others.
Starting with Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019, the free ‘Microsoft Hyper-V Server’ product has been deprecated and is the final version of that product. Hyper-V Server 2019 is a free product available for download from the Microsoft Evaluation Center: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter/evaluate-hyper-v-server-2019
Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 will continue to be supported under its lifecycle policy until January 2029, see this link for additional information: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/lifecycle/products/hyperv-server-2019.
While Microsoft has made a business decision to no longer offer the free 'Microsoft Hyper-V Server' product, this has no impact to the many other products which include the Hyper-V feature and capabilities. This change has no impact to any customers who use Windows Server or Azure Local.
For customers looking to do test or evaluation of the Hyper-V feature, Azure Local includes a 60-day free trial and can be downloaded here: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-local/ . Windows Server offers a free 180-day evaluation which can be downloaded from the Evaluation Center here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/evalcenter
Microsoft remains committed to meeting customers where they are and delivering innovation for on-premises virtualization and bringing unique hybrid capabilities like no other can combined with the power of Azure Arc. We are announcing that Microsoft Hyper-V Server 2019 was the last version of the free download product and that customers begin transitioning to one of the several other products which include Hyper-V or consider Azure.
Thank you,
Elden Christensen
Principal Group PM Manager
Windows Server Development Team
Hi Chris,
Thank you for pointing that out. I wasn't aware of the existence of Software Assurance and will now be looking into that further.
A follow up question for you: does this only apply to replications made by Hyper-V Server? Or replications made by any software whatsoever?
In other words: is another license or Software Assurance required to have any kind of DR at all, regardless of the software being used to replicate/backup the primary server?
Kind regards.
Hi AdamB2395,
If I understand the product terms correctly, it applies to replication situations within any hypervisor product, if the purpose of the replication is to temporarily run the 'backup' replicated virtual machine in the event of disaster recovery.
In the general Microsoft product terms for all products there is this statement on 'License Assignment and Reassignment':
'Before Customer uses software under a License, it must assign that License to a device or user, as appropriate. Customer may reassign a License to another device or user, but not less than 90 days since the last reassignment of that same License, unless the reassignment is due to (i) permanent hardware failure or loss... (the other reasons are irrelevant here). Customer must remove the software or block access from the former device or to the former user. '
https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms/en-US/product/ForallSoftware/OVOVS
There is nothing against creating a backup of a virtual machine that is never run (after all, that's just normal backup procedure) - but in order to run that backup on a separate piece of hardware, you either need to formally reassign the license to the new product - which involves removing the software or blocking access from the former device - and then you have to bear in mind the rules above that you can't transfer back for another 90 days, unless the reassignment is due to permanent hardware loss - or you could make your life simple and obtain Software Assurance to gain the Disaster Recovery Rights that I mentioned before.
'For each Instance of eligible server software Customer runs in a Physical OSE or Virtual OSE on a Licensed Server, it may temporarily run a backup Instance in a Physical OSE or Virtual OSE on... another one of its Servers dedicated to disaster recovery.'
You could probably imagine a situation where you could 'live with' the license reassignment rights with a limited kind of replication (if your two servers were identical, and you were pretty sure that you would just leave your 'backup' server running in the event of a failover even if you repaired the old one - and it would get more complicated if your backup server itself failed) but it'd get needlessly complicated and it would only seem sensible to use the Disaster Recovery Rights as the cheapest and most sensible way to do what you want.
- Hi Chris,
We only ever use replications in the case of a primary server hardware failure. If the general terms for the product license apply, then we should be fine. Having said that, I think looking into SA would be a good move.
Thanks. Hi SpenceFoxtrot,
I'm not sure the Microsoft product terms allow you to do what you're describing, but at the end of the day that's between you and any Microsoft auditors.
The only thing I'd suggest you might consider is that Disaster Recovery Rights under Software Assurance exist for a reason.
Kind regards,
Chris
- Hi Chris,
That is helpful and quite clear. I think talking to a reseller would still be a smart move, but at least for me, the whole 90 day reassignment is probably livable. I was concerned that I would be in breech in simply having a backup, but based on what you've said, I don't think that would be the case.
Thanks again. The hyperV replication not need any licence migration...
You can't start the two mahines at the same time with same copy of OS (aka licence in US, that not exist in France).
It's the same ID, the same system.
A replication is basicaly a save/backup, as a clone.
You can have 10 systems on the first machine, 10 replications on the second, and moving "for all time" 5 machines on the second hypervisor, with not end delay, because you want split performances, and accept a degraded mode when issue comming on 1 hypervisor for exemple.
Just respect "it's the same machine, so I can't run 2 on the same time with the same licence".
Any people in Microsoft blames you if you start for a short time the two mahine, after any crash (in the case where you have launch the replication for continu work after bug of the main system), to migrate some data for any reasons.
But "short moment" is not 10 years...
It's like 1 or 2 weeks maybe, where the initial machine is not use as service (or 2nd)... 1 day in fact in real situation where we xan imagine this scenario.
Or for time to re-migrate at starting point.Hi AdamB2395,
Going to have to stop replying to messages soon as it'll probably wind up everyone else subscribed to this thread (and I'm not an expert in Microsoft licensing, check with a reseller) but as far as I am aware, yes, you just 'say' that is what you are doing. I guess this is where it would be a good idea to formally document that decision so that you could demonstrate you had taken the product terms into account if you had a Microsoft auditor come knocking.
So yes, if you failed over, I guess you could formally make that declaration. But bear in mind:
- You can't fail over from the primary server for the first 90 days after installing the product unless the primary server suffered permanent hardware failure or loss.
- You need to fail over all of the VMs on a given server to the backup server; the licenses are assigned to the physical server in its entirety, not the VMs itself, and you can't split them between two servers.
- Unless the backup server suffered permanent hardware failure or loss you would be ineligible to move services back to the original server for 90 days.
- If the primary or backup server had an intermittent or temporary hardware failure and failed back before 90 days had passed (which could happen automatically under some replication scenarios), you'd be in breach. I would investigate to see if you can disable any automatic failover functionality so that you know failover is always a manual process.
- All of this presumes you are using retail or volume licenses. OEM licenses of the kind you purchase 'with' hardware can't be reassigned between servers.
I'm not paid to give you advice though, if you've got further questions probably best to ask a Microsoft reseller who is paid to get it right!
- Hi Chris,
When you speak of "reassigning" a license, is anything required to be "physically" done? Or do we just effectively say "right, this Server 2022 license is now assigned to these VMs rather than these", and then run them for 90 days, at which point we could fail back. In other words, how does formally assign a license?
