SQL Server Enterprise – Physical Core Licensing on Smaller Production Host with Passive HA/DR VMs on Larger Unlicensed Hosts

Question

SQL Server Enterprise – Physical Core Licensing on Smaller Production Host with Passive HA/DR VMs on Larger Unlicensed Hosts

peefee 0

Hello,

We have 8 SQL Server Enterprise core licenses with active Software Assurance (SA) and intend to license our production host by physical cores. We would like to confirm whether the following configuration is fully licensed for HA/DR:

Production: 8-core physical host, fully licensed with Enterprise + SA for unlimited virtualization (multiple SQL Server VMs).
HA: 16-core physical host running passive 8-vCPU SQL Server VMs.
DR: 16-core physical host running passive 8-vCPU SQL Server VMs.

Each passive VM corresponds to a production VM and would only become active during an emergency failover, as outlined in Microsoft's licensing guide.

Microsoft's SQL Server 2022 Licensing Guide (page 26) illustrates a similar Production/HA/DR configuration.

Question: Does licensing our 8-core production host by physical cores with SQL Server Enterprise + SA (unlimited virtualization) entitle us to run corresponding passive HA/DR VMs on separate, unlicensed 16-core physical hosts without purchasing additional SQL Server licenses, provided each passive VM is limited to 8 vCPUs?

If not, could you please reference the specific Microsoft licensing terms that prohibit this configuration?

Thank you!

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1 answer

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Answer 1

This is a technical forum, and your question is a legal one. You cannot get an authoritative answer here. If someone here would give you the nod, and you are later license-audited and the auditor thinks you are under-licensed, referring to this forum will carry very little weight.

You are better off contacting your local Microsoft representative to get an answer in writing.

I recognise the setup you describe from the Licensing Guide, but it's a little special when the primary is a physical machine and the secondary and the DR nodes are VMs.

My gut feeling is that you would need another 8-core licenses, but I did not open the license guide to find any confirmation for this. My reading of the licensing guide is not any better than yours.