Windows Server License allocation

October 16, 2019 at 7:00 AM

I have Windows server 2019 DC licenses and i am assigning it to cluster host around 5 host. As you know that Windows Server 2019 DC is core based license and minimum 16 core licenses are required per server. I can easily assign these licenses to 2019/2016 DC products as metric is set to number of processor cores and minimum license requirement is set 16 in snow but for Windows server 2012 DC the metric is set to number of processor and minimum license requirement is set to 2. So in this case will snow assign licenses from WS 2019 DC to WS 2012 DC correctly or i need to change metric to number of processor cores and minimum license requirement to 16? Similarly for older version will snow assign licenses properly like 2008? OS Current metric Minimum requirement Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Number of Processor 2 Windows Server 2012 Standard Number of Processor 2 Windows Server 2008 Enterprise Based on installations - ‌ ‌ ‌ ‌

carolai
7 years ago
When you have WS DC 2019 licenses, then you need to use the metric of that version. That is core, like you already know. So all your hosts will be calculated by core requirement. You can assign these licenses to the whole cluster, that is easier. Or you can assign them to single hosts. You should activate Downgrade rights and Cross edition rights in your license. Then any lower version or edition for Hosts or Virtual machines will be covered. You do not need to change the license metric of that applications, like WS 2012 DC or 2012 STD, ... One Hint. Did you already use the Windows Server Assessment reports? In my opinion they are very helpful to see the calculated requirement in case of Core or of Processor licensing. In your case you can use the 2019 Assessment report. That will calculate the requirement, when you plan to license your servers by 2019 version.
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- kiran.bangera
  7 years ago
  Thanks Carola for your response are you sure that windows will assign license for lower version? As the metric for WS 2012 DC or 2012 Std is number of processor with minimum 2 license requirement whereas the license that I have uploaded is for WS 2019 DC core licenses. For windows server assessment report is it available on SLM 8 i have never seen it?
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  - carolai
    7 years ago
    Hi Kiran, Sorry, my answer didn't consider the different SLM versions and I was not detailed enough. We are on the latest version, currently 9.4.1. We migrated to SLM 9 early this year. So I can only talk about the current calculation in that version. I know the Assessment reports were added in SLM 9, but I don't know if they were also added in SLM 8. As far as I remember a Windows Server Datacenter license was correctly downgraded in version and edition also in SLM 8. But unfortunately I can not confirm that for SLM 8.
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    kiran.bangera
    7 years ago
    Thank you Carola
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