Consumption calculation for Mcrosoft Server datacenter core

[claudiogentili]

for this license according to the Microsoft metric the consumption should be calculated taking as reference all the cores of the Hosts inside a Custer vmware. E.G if the Cluster is made up of 6 hosts but only one Microsoft virtual machine is hosted on one of the 6 Hosts, the license consumption should be calculated for all cores of the 6 Hosts and not only on the host that hosts the Microsoft virtual machine. I applied the "Microsoft Server / Management Core" type to the license and the consumption it detects is only on the host hosting the microsoft virtual machine. Is it possible to consider this a bug of the platform or is it necessary to perform some particular configuration?
Thank you

Claudio

[nrousseau1 · Accepted solution]

Hello Claudio,

You are right, currently, the FNMS license computes Windows Server consumptions based on the last state of the Clusters / Hosts / Installed Windows Server VMs... Which is not good. 

The rule however is more complicated than "you need to cover all your ESX servers with Windows Server DataCenter" licenses .

Here is a summary of the licensing rule from a "SAM Best Practices Monthly Webinar" session delivered in September 2021 (https://community.flexera.com/t5/Events-and-Webinars/Recording-and-Presentation-of-the-September-Monthly-SAM-Best/ba-p/206505/jump-to/first-unread-message)

Microsoft Server Operating System’s Licensing is challenging

• Multiple Licenses/Editions
  • Windows Server Standard, Windows Server DataCenter, Core Infrastructure Datacenter, Core Infrastructure Standard, System Center Standard, System Center DataCenter
• Multiple Metrics over the time
  • Old processor metric transitioned to core metric in 2016
• Different licensing rules (and costs)
  • Windows Server DataCenter Edition (7 times more expensive than Standard Edition): unlimited VMs covered
  • Windows Server Standard Edition: cheaper but two rules
    • More VMs will require more licenses
    • A license covering a VM on a host cannot be “reallocated” to another host for 90 days

Microsoft does not require all cores of all Hosts within clusters to be licensed... they have a mobility rule hat leads their customer to choose the "worst" case... or even the "All ESX Servers in DataCenter" options that are extremely expensive. The report com

Another session delivered on February 3rd https://community.flexera.com/t5/Events-and-Webinars/Recording-and-Presentation-of-the-February-Monthly-SAM-Best/bc-p/225402#M124 give details on the Windows Server optimization report that will be released in March. The licenses will not perform the same calculations short term but allocations will be possible (flat Windows Server License consumption report in April)... and this optimization logic will be added mid term to the licenses.

You can subscribe to to "event and Webinar" section of the community to monitor other Best Practices sessions: https://community.flexera.com/t5/Events-and-Webinars/bg-p/learning-labs

Best regards,

Nicolas

B

[simonclarke69]

Hi,

Is there a current Best Practice for Licensing a Cluster with MS Server Datacenter Licenses please. Currently I can see Flexera looking to cover all Virtual Cores , so I have a deficit. Should I just 'fudge' the entitlement to cover the max consumprion ? Thank you