Windows Server 2016 Licensing Vmware Esxi

Currently we are running our vms on hyper v and are planning to migrate to vsphere.

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. Majority of our vms will be running with guest os as windows server 2019 2016. Esxi hosts are licensed with vsphere licenses. I am new to the infrastructure world i wanted to understand how does windows server licensing work on esxi.

You use a license key to activate a vm but that does not mean that the license is assigned to the vm. 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. When you assign a vsphere license to a host the amount of cpu capacity that is consumed is equal to the number of physical cpus in the host. I understand i ll have to licenses each physical core.

With 2016 standard licensing you ll get 2 ose per standard license. So that s either 4 x standard licenses or 1 x datacenter licenses. 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. A license is always assigned to the physical host.

This step by step how to guide is aimed at readers who have yet to install a windows os on a vmware hypervisor. A minimum of 16 core licenses is required for each server. Vsphere desktop that is intended for vdi environments is licensed on per virtual machine basis. And both standard and datacenter are per core.

A minimum of 8 core licenses is required for each physical processor. Servers are licensed based on the number of processor cores in the physical server. A virtual machine is never licensed.