Windows Server 2016 Standard License for VMs & RDS CAL

Copper Contributor

We are a small business with two HP Servers(HPE ProLiant DL380) virtualized with ESXi, containing 7 VMs of Windows Server OS(2016).

As per Hardware documentation, each server has single processor with 10 cores each. So that should make 20 Cores total.

I did search about Microsoft Licensing and it says core based can have two VMs if 16 Core licenses are purchased.

Can anyone help me about

  1. How many Windows Server 2016 STD Licenses should I purchase to accommodate 7 VMs.

  2. If I purchase 1 Remote Desktop Device CALs for each of VM's (Total:7), multiple users in the domain can RDP login to the server?

3 Replies

Standard would only allow for two VMs so since you'll have 7 VMs I'd recommend one Windows Server 2016 Datacenter (base) 16 core and two more 2 core additional licenses.

 

 http://h17007.www1.hpe.com/us/en/enterprise/servers/licensing/index.aspx#.Wl9hNExFzD4

 

From what I understand as they have two physical hosts they will need to buy 2 x datacenter licences. One per each node. This will allow them to use vmotion etc and be licenced.

 

If they went standard they would only be able to vmotion the vm's once every 90 days.

 

If you want to be able for more than two admins to be able to remote on to the servers then you would also need rds cals for that.

 

Hope that helps. If you need any more information please let me know.

 

Thanks

 

Richard

Yes, I see that now. I was going to delete my post but it appears that isn't possible over here. Two base 16 core datacenter licenses would be the solution for two physical hosts.