When working in the physical world it’s pretty easy to figure out.  However many cores there are on the physical chip is how many cores you need licenses for.  If you’ve got one of the new 12 core Intel CPUs with Hyper Threading enabled you need 12 core licenses for that CPU.

When we get into the world of VMs that is where things get a little more iffy.  We are no longer concerned about physical cores on the socket but now we are licensing based on the number of vCPUs which have been presented to the guest OS.  If you have the same 12 core CPU that I just talked about, but you assign all 24 logical processors as vCPUs to the guest you have to license for 24 cores for that VM.  For those of your doing the math, yes this means that you have to double license the cores when working in a VM.

While I’m sure that this isn’t the best news that you’ve ever heard, don’t forget that if you are running really large VMs like this you have a few options to help yourself out.  First of all don’t forget that to run a 24 core SQL Server you have to be running Enterprise Edition (Standard edition only supports 16 cores in SQL Server 2012), so if you already have an Enterprise Agreement and Software Assurance you can probably license at the host level instead of at the guest level and save yourself some licensing money.

If you plan on running larger VMs running SQL Server you may also want to look at disabling Hyper Threading.  You will probably be running the physical CPUs hot anyway and Hyper Threading may just get in your way anyway.  This also reduces the number of cores that you can assign to the VM, which reduces your license costs for that VM.

Denny

Editions

First lets start with the edition lists.  SQL Server is reducing the number of editions from 6 down to 4 (I’m excluding all the different appliances here).  Those editions will be Express, Standard, BI, and Enterprise Edition.  The express edition will still be a free edition with limited functionality.  I wouldn’t expect the features that are available in the express edition to change.  As for the features which will be available, the specific features which will be in each edition haven’t yet been announced.  Look for this sort of feature matrix to be available sometime between now and when SQL Server 2012 goes GA in 2012.  Until that feature matrix is released any specific feature to edition information that you here is just a rumor.

Web Edition

The web edition will still exist even though I didn’t list it above.  The reason that I didn’t list it above is because the web edition will no longer be available for purchase via enterprise license agreements or retail channels.  The only way that you will be able to get the web edition of SQL Server 2012 will be through a hosting provider like Amazon EC2, RackSpace, Dream Host, Genesis Hosting Solutions, etc.  These hosting providers will be able to provide you with the web edition of SQL Server 2012 through their hosting provider license.

Workgroup Edition

The workgroup edition is no more.  I don’t have any specific information about how the upgrades will work for customers who have purchased the workgroup edition under their enterprise agreements.  If you are one of the few customers who has purchased SQL Server Workgroup edition under your enterprise agreement you’ll want to contact your sales rep or Microsoft Partner on what options are available to you when it comes time to upgrade that server to SQL Server 2012.

Standard Edition

The standard edition is still around and kicking.  Standard edition will be available in both a Server+CAL license model or a CPU Core license model.  The costs for a server license or a CPU Core license remain the same as they were under SQL Server 2008 R2 (I’ll explain the core licenses later on).  However if you are using the Server+CAL license model the CALs are going up in price by 27% from $164 (US) to $208.28 (US).

There are some things to note about Standard Edition which are changing from prior editions.  First there is a hard limit of 16 cores for Standard Edition.  This is hard set and is a license limitation so SQL Server will only use the first 16 cores in the server if there are more than 16 cores in the server.

A big change to the Standard Edition high availability story that has been announced is that Database Mirroring in Standard Edition remains but has been marked as deprecated.  This means that it is support available, and supported but will be removed from the product in a future release, typically 2-3 major releases from now.

As for the support for other features in the standard edition of SQL Server 2012 not a lot of the details have been made available yet.  For the complete support matrix you’ll have to wait until we get closer to the release of the product.

The features that I do know will NOT be available in the standard edition are:

• Data Quality Services
• Master Data Services
• Power View
• PowerPivot for SharePoint Services
• Semantic Model
• Advanced Auditing
• Transparent Data Encryption
• Column Store Index
• Data Compression
• Table/Index Partitioning
• Always On

BI Edition

There is a new edition between the Standard Edition and the Enterprise Edition called the BI Edition.  The BI Edition will include all the features of the Standard edition plus some extras.  The licensing for the BI edition will only be available in a Server+CAL model.  There is no CPU core license available for the BI Edition.  If you need a CPU license for the BI Edition you’ll need to look to the Enterprise Edition (as it includes all the BI edition features).  Now the BI Edition doesn’t include only the BI stack.  It includes the database engine as well with a slightly higher cap on the number of cores that are supported.  While the standard edition supports 16 cores for the database engine, the BI edition supports up to 20 cores for the database engine.  All of the BI services (SSAS, SSIS, SSRS) will support up to the OS maximum number of cores.

The BI edition will include the following features:

• Data Quality Services
• Master Data Services
• Power View
• Power Pivot for SharePoint Services
• Semantic Model
• Advanced Analytics

The BI Edition will not include the following features:

• Advanced Auditing
• Transparent Data Encryption
• Column Store Index
• Data Compression
• Table/Index Partitioning
• Always On

The BI Edition is listed as having “Basic” High Availability.  I have gotten no answer on what “Basic” High Availability is.

The cost for the BI Edition server license will be the same as the SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise Edition server license which is $8,592.

If you need an internet facing SSAS cube you can not use a BI Edition license, you will then need to look at purchasing an Enterprise Edition license for that server.

Enterprise Edition

The Enterprise Edition is still around and is the big daddy of the SQL Server stack again as the Data Center Edition of the product is being removed.  This means that the Enterprise Edition will hold all the new features that are being introduced.  When it comes to licensing Enterprise Edition there is no longer a Server+CAL model available for new purchases.  You will only be able to purchase CPU Core licenses.  If you are upgrading an existing server that has Server+CAL using your Software Assurance or Enterprise Agreement you can continue to use the Server+CAL license model for as long as you continue to pay for Software Assurance.  If you terminate your Software Assurance license you’ll then need to purchase the correct number of CPU Core licenses for that server (again I’ll be talking about the CPU Core licenses further down).

The Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2012 will include all the features of the BI Edition as well as the Standard Edition.

Datacenter Edition

The Datacenter Edition of SQL Server is going away.  All users of the data center edition will be switching into the Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2012.  There will be some special benefits when you do this change out as you switch your CPU licenses of SQL Server 2008 R2 to CPU Core licenses of SQL Server 2012 which I’ll cover below.

CPU Core Licenses

By now you’ve probably noticed that I’ve mentioned CPU Core licenses and not CPU licenses.  That’s right, Microsoft has decided to follow the unholy beast (aka. Oracle) into CPU core licensing hell.  It’s actually not that bad, and for most of your servers the costs should stay the same.

The CPU Core licenses (available only for Standard and Enterprise edition) are sold in two core “packs” (I don’t know the actual term for them yet, so I’ve decided to call them “packs”).  If you have quad core CPUs you need two of these packs per socket.  These license packs will cost half of what a SQL Server 2008 R2 CPU license cost.  The catch here is that you have to purchase at least 4 cores per CPU.  The reason that Microsoft decided not to just sell the licenses in 4 core “packs” is because the people with 6 core CPUs would then be screwed having to buy more licenses than they actually needed.

If you have two sockets with 2 cores each, you need 4 license “packs” (8 core licenses)

If you have two sockets with 4 cores each, you need 4 license “packs” (8 core licenses)

If you have two sockets with 6 cores each, you need 6 license “packs” (12 core licenses)

If you have two sockets with 8 cores each, you need 8 license “packs” (16 core licenses)

SQL Server in a VM

When you are running SQL Server within a virtual machine if you are using CPU Core licenses then you will need to license at least 4 cores for the VM.  If you have more than 4 vCPUs on the VM you’ll need to have a CPU Core license for each vCPU that you have assigned to the VM.

Host Based Licensing

SQL Server 2012 will still include host based licensing as on option for those customers who have Software Assurance and an Enterprise Agreement.  The host based licensing works just like it did before, you purchase enough Enterprise Edition CPU Core licenses for the host and you can run as many virtual machines running SQL Server as you would like to.

Upgrading using your Software Assurance Rights

This is probably the section that you were looking forward to (or dreading) the most.

When you upgrade from SQL Server 2008 R2 (or below) to SQL Server 2012 using your Software Assurance rights you can continue to use your existing license model until the end of your Software Assurance cycle.  This means that if you have CPU licenses under SQL Server 2008 R2 you can continue to use those CPU licenses under SQL Server 2012 until your Software Assurance expires.  Once it expires you will need to true up on the number of CPU Cores.  When this true up happens each CPU license that you had before will count towards a minimum of 4 CPU Cores (if you have Data Center Edition CPU licenses of SQL Server 2008 R2 you will be credited a minimum of 8 CPU Cores for each CPU license).  If you have a large server that needs upgrading talk to you Microsoft Account Manager or Microsoft Partner about the core credit that you’ll get for your legacy CPU licenses.  You’ll notice the magical word “minimum” shown here.  This is because the Microsoft Account Managers and Microsoft Partners have the ability to give you more credit that these minimums.

If you have a SQL Server today with two sockets and you upgrade it to SQL Server 2012, then you need to add two more sockets to the server you can still do that.  Contact your Microsoft Account Manager (if you have a Software Assurance or an Enterprise Agreement then you have a Microsoft Account Manager, your boss probably knows how to contact them) or Microsoft Partner and they will be able to see you CPU licenses for existing servers only.  The SKU won’t be published, but it will be available internally for them to get to you.

Server Licenses and Upgrading

If you have a Standard Edition server that uses Server+CAL licensing that you are upgrading to SQL Server 2012 do keep in mind that hard limit of 16 cores for Standard Edition.

If you have an Enterprise Edition server that uses Server+CAL licensing that you are upgrading to SQL Server 2012 don’t freak out.  There is an upgrade path for you even though there is no more Server+CAL license available for SQL Server 2012, provided that you have Software Assurance for the SQL Server license.  If you do then you can upgrade that server continuing to use the Server+CAL model (don’t forget that your CALs need upgrading as well if they don’t have Software Assurance) until your Software Assurance expires at which point you would need to downgrade to the BI edition or the Standard Edition; or upgrade to the CPU Core license model to remain on Enterprise Edition (look at the features you need before making this decision).  Now the catch here is that using the SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition with a Server+CAL license option (that you’ve upgraded into as you can not purchase this new) is ONLY available for servers that have 20 cores or less.  If you have a SQL Server with more than 20 cores running Enterprise Edition using a Server+CAL license model you’ll need to talk to your Microsoft Account Manager or Microsoft Partner to see what options are available to you.

Costs For Buying New

For Standard Edition when using the Server+CALs license the cost will remain the same as SQL Server 2008 R2 ($898).  When using the CPU Core license model if you have 4 cores or less per CPU socket the cost will remain the same as a CPU license for SQL Server 2008 R2 ($7,171 US).  If you have more cores than 4 per socket the costs will go up depending on the number of cores that you have.  For every two cores in the server you’ll need a CPU Core “pack” which will cost $3,585.50.

For the BI Edition your only option is Server+CALs.  The SQL Server 2012 BI Edition server license will be the same as the SQL Server 2008 R2 Enterprise server license cost ($8,592).

For the Enterprise Edition your only option is the CPU Core license model.  For a server with 4 cores or less per CPU the cost will remain the same as a CPU license for SQL Server 2008 R2 ($27,495).  If you have more cores than 4 per socket the costs will go up depending on the number of cores that you have.  For every two cores in the server you’ll need a CPU Core “pack” which will cost $13,747.50.

If you have an Enterprise Agreement check with your Microsoft Account Manager or Microsoft Partner for actual pricing information.  Customers with an Enterprise Agreement should be paying less than these numbers show.  Of course Software Assurance will made the numbers go up but that includes its own set of benefits.

Questions?

I hope that this answers your questions about the SQL Server 2012 licensing model that will be coming out.  If I didn’t please post your questions here or on Twitter and I’ll either answer them or get them to someone who can answer them if I can’t and get the answer published either in the Q&A here or as a new blog post.

My Opinion

Now you may think from this rather long post that I like everything that I’ve talked about here, which isn’t the case.  This blog post is to simply explain what is coming in as clear a way as possible given that the presentations on this topic that I’ve seen to date have left me with a lot more questions than answers.  After all I did spend the better part of a day on the phone with two people at Microsoft to get all of this explained in such a way that I understood it.  As not everyone out there will get that chance I put together this blog post to explain what I learned.  Personally I don’t think that killing off the Workgroup edition was not a good idea.  Lots of people were using it, including everyone running SBS 2008 R2 (or what ever it is called).

I’m not a big fan of the core based licensing model that we have coming out with SQL Server 2012, but I do understand why Microsoft is going to this model.  I think we were pretty lucky to have gotten away with CPU based licenses for as long as we did.  Personally I really think that moving away from a Server+CAL license model for Enterprise Edition is a bad plan given that thinks like the Utility Control Point require Enterprise Edition (I’m assuming this will still require EE).  If you want to manage a large company with UCP that requires a pretty beefy Enterprise Edition server which is dedicated to UCP, yet this server now will cost A LOT compared to just buying an Enterprise Edition Server+CAL license for your UCP server.

I think that a lot more information is going to be needed before any real decision can be made on how much I like or don’t like these changes.  When the full feature to edition matrix is released that will be a big deciding factor in how well some of these changes will go over.

Obviously the knee jerk reaction of SQL Server 2012 is going to cost me more money so the chance sucks is an easy one to take, hell that’s where I started from (you should have seen the first emails I sent to Microsoft).  But when you look at some of the variables that they have put into getting people upgraded, specifically the ability to convert a CPU license to at least 4 core licenses (or at least 8 if coming from Data Center edition) gives some flexibility.  This is when it is going to be very important to have a good working relationship with your Microsoft Account Manager or Microsoft Partner as the ability to upgrade for as little as possible will be sitting squarely in their hands.  I would reach out to this person now, get to know them.  Bake them some cookies, send them a bottle of booze, what ever it takes to get on their good side.

Denny

If you’ve ever read through the Microsoft Licensing website it’s pretty wordy and pretty complex.  I’ll try and demystify it a little bit here.  Keep in mind that everything here covers all editions except for SQL Express as SQL Express is free, and the Developer edition as it is not for production use.  This licensing information applies to all the services in the SQL Server suite.  I’ll break this down more at the bottom.

In a nut shell you have two licensing options.  Per CPU licenses, and per Core licenses.

Per CPU licenses require that you purchase one CPU license for each physical CPU in the server.  So far Microsoft doesn’t charge per CPU core, and hopefully they don’t plan to.  This gives them a huge marketing advantage over Oracle which charges you per CPU core.  Now the catch here is it doesn’t matter how many CPUs SQL Server is configured to use.  If the CPU is physically installed in the server it needs a license.

With VMs this license gets a little tricky.  As you need one CPU license for each CPU that the VM sees.  So if your VM is setup as a dual CPU VM (the Host presents two CPUs) to the VM then you need two licenses.  The catch here becomes if you have a quad chip, quad core host (16 cores) and you present 8 cores to the guest OS you need 8 CPU licenses as your guest OS sees 8 CPUs.

Now there is a little known license plan which allows you to license the host machine, and not the guest OSs.  If you have SQL Server Enterprise Edition you can license all the CPUs at the host level, which then gives you the right to install as many SQL Server Enterprise Edition servers on that host.  So if you have two quad core quad CPU servers in a VMware customer and you plan on installing a bunch of SQL Server Enterprise edition licenses on lots of guest OSs, then this would be the cheapest route for you to take as you only need 8 CPU licenses and you are done.  This option is not available with any edition other than the Enterprise Edition, so don’t try it with Standard or Workgroup.

There are a couple of major upsides to CPU licenses.

1. You can have as many users connect to the SQL Server as you would like.
2. You can install as many instances as you would like.

The downside to CPU licensing is that they are expensive.  The Enterprise Edition of SQL Server 2008 lists for $25,000 per CPU.

So, that’s a little pricey for you, and you remember that up top I said there were two options.

The second option is to use CALs aka Client Access Licenses.  With CALs there are a few things you have to deal with.  Each instance you install requires that you purchase a server license.  These list of a few hundred to a few thousand dollars per instance depending on the edition you select.

The misconception with CALs is that they are based on concurrent users.  If you think that they are based on concurrent users you are wrong, accept it.  Don’t try to explain why you are correct in the comments.  This is directly from the SQL Licensing FAQ “In other words, a user CAL covers a particular user’s access to the server software from work computers and laptops…”.

So CALs are based on named users or named devices, you get to pick which one when buying the CALs.  If your users have lots of devices that connect to the SQL Server then you will want to use user CALs.  If your users share devices and you have less devices than you do users, then you want to use device CALs.  If you have a mix between the two (management has lots of dedicated devices, and a call center where users share computers) then you can buy some of each, but license management will be a nightmare.

Now, if you plan on running a website and have two web servers connecting to your database, you only need two device CALs right?  Nope, Microsoft already thought of this.  CALs are owned by the end user accessing the information.  It doesn’t matter how many layers of middle tier software are in between the user and the database.  The basic idea here is that if you have an Internet facing application you need to have CPU cals unless every user that accesses the application has a CAL.

So the next question becomes when does it make sense to buy CPU licenses over CALs for an internal application.  This comes down to math.  If you have lots of servers, and only a few users then CALs are the way to go.  If you have a few servers and lots of users then CPU licensing is probably the way to go.  If you have lots of servers, and lots of users it gets a little trickier as you need to figure out which option is more cost effective.

Now there are a few catches with CALs that you need to be aware of.

CALs are good for the version of the product that you bought them with and lower, but not higher.  So if you have SQL 2005 CALs and you want to install a SQL 2008 server and use CALs you’ll need to purchase new CALs for all the users that need access to the SQL 2008 server.

CALs can not be sold after you purchase the new versions CALs.  In other words, using the example above, you can’t take the CALs that the SQL 2008 users no longer need and sell them on eBay to make up some of the cost of the SQL 2008 CALs.

CALs do have some upsides.  Most importantly you only need one CAL to connect to all the SQL Servers in your company.  So if you have 5 users, and 10 servers you only need 5 CALs to allow those 5 users to connect to all 10 servers.

So, up at the top I said that this information applies to all the services in the SQL Server Suite.  What this means is that if you have CPU licensing and you install the SQL Engine, SSAS, and SSRS all on the same physical server you only need one set of licenses.  You don’t have to license each one separately.

Now if you install the services on different physical servers then you will need to license each server separately.  So if you are using CPU licenses and the database server has 2 CPUs, and the SSAS server has 2 CPUs and the SSRS server has 1 CPU then you need 5 CPU licenses.

Now, the other upside to CALs which I didn’t mention above is that a single SQL Server CAL allows you to connect to all the SQL Server services.  You don’t need a separate CAL for SSAS, and a separate CAL for SSRS.

Hopefully this will help demystify SQL Server licensing for some.  If it is still as clear as mud post your questions here, or twitter and I’ll post the answers that I can.

No matter what you read about licensing Microsoft can change the licensing setup at any time, so for final information be sure to check with your account manager or sales rep.  If you have Licensing specific questions you can call Microsoft at (800) 426-9400 from the US or (877) 568-2495 from Canada.  For other countries call your local Microsoft office to get the local number.  I’ve called them before and they were very helpful in answering some questions.

Denny

The other 3 servers went just fine, quick reboot when done and back up and running in no time.

So experience said that the fourth one would be no problem…

This was not the case.  Apparently in their infinite wisdom VMware has decided to make it so that ESX won’t restart any guest OSs if it can’t find the Licensing server.  Normally this wouldn’t be a problem, as your licensing server is normally on your Virtual Center server.  Well we are a small shop and VMware is used to run mostly dev servers so I have our Virtual Center Server as a VM on the first virtual server in our farm (these machines aren’t on a SAN to there’s no VMotion).  In the past when I’ve rebooted the host is has never been a problem.

This time not so much.  When I’d try to start the guest machines I was greated with an unknown error. Not exactly helpful.

Searching the net didn’t bring me anything useful, everyone was just bitching and complaining about the ESX 3.5 Update 2 bug where it expired all licenses on 8/12/2008.

So I did a little digging into the /var/log/vmware/hostd.log file and I saw something about it couldn’t find the license.  Well I happen to have the origional license from before we had Virtual Center so I told the ESX host to use that, and I was able to start the guest machines right up.

I guess a project for next week will be to put together a dedicated machine to use as a Virtual Center server.  That just sounds like fun doesn’t it?  Until then I’ll leave the VMware host with the local license file.

Denny