Datacenter Edition is a licensing methodology for the Windows Server and System Center Platform. It allows you to run multiple Operating System Environments on a box for the licenses applied. The major difference is that Datacenter Edition is licensed per socket instead of per box like the Enterprise Edition. So, if you have a 2 socket quad core machine, for DCE you would need to purchase two sockets worth of DCE and apply them to the physical box, then you can run as many guest Operating System Environments (OSEs) as you want.

Datacenter Edition is a licensing methodology for the Windows Server and System Center Platform. It allows you to run multiple Operating System Environments on a box for the licenses applied. The major difference is that Datacenter Edition is licensed per socket instead of per box like the Enterprise Edition. So, if you have a 2 socket quad core machine, for DCE you would need to purchase two sockets worth of DCE and apply them to the physical box, then you can run as many guest Operating System Environments (OSEs) as you want.