SQL Server 2025 Enterprise – Do I need additional core licenses to run Power BI Report Server on a separate server/VM?

Question

SQL Server 2025 Enterprise – Do I need additional core licenses to run Power BI Report Server on a separate server/VM?

Nutpapon Limsupavanich 20

Hello,

We are planning to purchase Microsoft SQL Server 2025 Enterprise Edition and would like to use the Power BI Report Server (PBIRS) rights included with the SQL Server 2025 license.

Our planned deployment is:

Server A: SQL Server 2025 Enterprise Edition (Database Engine)
Server B: Power BI Report Server only

The Microsoft Product Terms ("Use of Power BI Report Server") state:

"With SQL Server 2025, Customer may run Power BI Report Server software on the Licensed Server, on any allowed Fail-over OSE in accordance with those same limits, or in Azure. Customer may run the software on a maximum numbers of cores equal to the number of SQL Server Standard or Enterprise Edition Core Licenses assigned to the Licensed Server, subject to a minimum of four core licenses per OSE."

Our questions:

If PBIRS is installed on a separate server/VM (Server B), must SQL Server 2025 Core Licenses also be assigned to Server B (minimum 4 core licenses per OSE)? Or can the core licenses assigned to Server A cover PBIRS running on Server B?
If Server A and Server B are VMs on the same physical host, does running PBIRS in a separate VM on that host count as running it "on the Licensed Server"? If so, are the cores used by PBIRS counted in addition to, or shared with, the cores licensed for the SQL Server Database Engine?
If additional licenses are required, can we split one purchase of Enterprise Core Licenses between Server A and Server B (e.g., [X] cores assigned to Server A and 4 cores assigned to Server B)?
For developers/administrators who publish Power BI reports (.pbix) to PBIRS, we understand a Power BI Pro license is required, while publishing paginated reports (.rdl) and viewing reports do not require Pro when PBIRS is licensed through SQL Server. Could you please confirm this is correct?

Thank you in advance for your help.

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2 answers

Your answer

Answer 1

The number of core licenses required depends on the hosting environment (OSE). If physical, then every core must be licensed. If a VM, then the number of cores hosted by the VM. There is a minimum number of cores, so if you used two VM’s each with 2 cores, you would need 8 core licenses (4 each). It doesn’t matter if the VM are hosted on the same machine or separate machines, they are licensed independently.

Power BI Report Server Is only allowed on a OSE that is fully SQLServer licensed. As you are planning on running Power BI Report Server in a dedicated VM, that VM needs its own core licenses, based on the VM configuration.

Sqlserver core packs are sold in pairs. You buy enough packs to cover your license needs. Just add up the number of cores required for all your OSE and buy enough packs to cover.

Note: if your vm’s where hosted on separate machines, you might want to license one primary and one failover (which requires a full license) and use the failover server for the BI server. Then the failover performs double duty. But when failed over you’d have reduced performance.

Answer 2

First of all, this is a technical forum, and your questions are of a legal nature for which you cannot get an authoritative answer here. You need to contact your local Microsoft representative for an answer that is binding and which will take you through a license review.

But so much I know about the licensing that for the scenario you describe, both servers needs to be licensed, no matter if they are two physical servers or two VMs on the same physical host. For the third question, I am less certain, but my gut feeling is that you can't do this. You need a license for both servers. But it might be possible buy a license for less cores for the machine running PBIRS. For the last question, I will need to pass.

If you have not done so, please study the SQL Server Licensing Guide.