Windows Server Datacenter Licensing Guide

To give you a more consistent licensing experience across multi cloud environments we transitioned from processor based licensing to core based licensing for windows server 2019 datacenter and standard editions.

Windows server datacenter licensing guide.

Largely this calculator is identical to the windows server 2016 calculator with a few minor tweaks. The transition from processor based to core based licensing was first introduced with windows server 2016. Windows server standard and datacenter editions continue to require windows server cals for every user or device accessing a server see the product terms for exceptions or windows server external connector licenses for servers accessed by external users. Total of required oses the total number of operating system environments oses to be run on the server s.

Host specification since the windows server 2019 datacenter and standard editions are licensed by physical core this tool requires information about the number of servers hosts the number of cpus per server and the number of cores per cpu. For specific pricing contact your microsoft reseller. Editions are differentiated by virtualization rights only two oses for standard and unlimited oses for datacenter. Windows server 2019 standard and windows server 2019 datacenter alternatively both follow core based licensing models where licensing requirements are determined based on the number of server cores instead of the number of processors.

I figured it was time to update the highly popular calculator to reflect the standard price increase. If you re new to the licensing changes in windows server 2016 or. Windows server 2019 has been out for a while now and other than some early adopter issues it appears to be pretty stable now.