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DennisMCSE
Moderator
Canada
2400 Posts
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JSCLMEDAVE
Administrator
USA
6116 Posts
Status: online |
 Posted - 11/15/2011 : 09:49:56 AM
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A good discussion on this here Dennis - http://web2.minasi.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=38364
Posted - 11/09/2011 : 3:00:58 PM
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In response to Curt’s interpretation of the licensing.
I think the extended window to buy EE Server licenses is also causing confusion, at least according to the posts I have read on this. I found this while reading some other posts from Aidan's site and Twitter.
"The 20 core server limit only applies to SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition Server licenses (Server + CAL licensing model).
If you have prior version Enterprise Edition Server licenses (Server + CAL licensing model) with Software Assurance and have upgraded to SQL 2012, or have bought a new SQL Server 2012 Server license prior to July 1st, then the 20 core Server limit comes into play.
Each Enterprise Edition SQL 2012 Server License permits use on up to 20 cores in the physical operating system environment.
If running VMs instead, you may run up to 4 VMs associated with Enterprise Edition on no more than 20 cores.
If you have more than 4 VMs, you can acquire additional Enterprise Server licenses and an additional 20 core limit would apply to those 4.
If you are licensing with SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Cores, there is no core limit."
I also found this link that seems to provide some actual understandable information which seems to back up the previous statements. Hope this helps someone. Microsoft licensing is still the mystery Voodoo of IT for me.
SQL Server 2012 Licensing Datasheet
Published: November 3, 2011
http://download.microsoft.com/download/2/3/8/2386E6B8-8F6C-461D-B0FF-61EE05DAD511/Licensing%20datasheet%20FINAL%20-%20USA.pdf
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Tim-
“This too shall pass" |
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Wiseman82
Old Timer
United Kingdom
520 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/15/2011 : 1:09:57 PM
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Yeah it is a big change. Our license costs will double under the new license scheme, but it's actually a lot worse than that. It's going to make upgrades to our DB server a lot more expensive. We have a 32 core server that we are probably going to upgrade in the next 1-2 years and I would have expected to double the number of cores. Previously this wouldn't have cost us any extra going from 8 core CPUs to 16, but now it means that we will need to double up on licenses again.
It's going to get very expensive for small/medium size businesses. Potentially this change will keep a lot of people on SQL 2005/2008.
If they are moving to core based licensing I don't think it should be 1/4 of the cost of a processor license. That's maybe about right for desktop PCs, but 8-10 cores are readily available on entry level servers. As time goes on the number of cores are only going to increase. |
David Wiseman
MCSE (2000/2003), MCSA (2003), MCDBA, MCITP:Database Administrator
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Curt
Moderator
USA
6652 Posts
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Posted - 11/17/2011 : 11:53:43 AM
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It seems that it's time to have the SQL MVPs put some "INPUT" into the SQL Product group and the Share Point Product group, regarding the price by core decision.
It also makes it harder to quote new jobs.
quote:
Originally posted by Wiseman82
Yeah it is a big change. Our license costs will double under the new license scheme, but it's actually a lot worse than that. It's going to make upgrades to our DB server a lot more expensive. We have a 32 core server that we are probably going to upgrade in the next 1-2 years and I would have expected to double the number of cores. Previously this wouldn't have cost us any extra going from 8 core CPUs to 16, but now it means that we will need to double up on licenses again.
It's going to get very expensive for small/medium size businesses. Potentially this change will keep a lot of people on SQL 2005/2008.
If they are moving to core based licensing I don't think it should be 1/4 of the cost of a processor license. That's maybe about right for desktop PCs, but 8-10 cores are readily available on entry level servers. As time goes on the number of cores are only going to increase.
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Curt Spanburgh
Microsoft Certified Business Solution Specialist.
Dynamics CRM MVP
Contributing Editor, Windows IT Pro
He that is walking with wise persons will become wise, but he that is having dealings with the stupid ones will fare badly.
Proverbs 13:20
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timberk
Major Contributor
USA
786 Posts
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NMDANGE
Honorable But Hopeless Addict
USA
2054 Posts
Status: offline |
Posted - 11/17/2011 : 6:37:09 PM
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I am definitely not a fan of these changes either. A good quote from that blog:
quote:
So now there will also be a huge incentive on software licensing to step down from a 4-way 10-core system with 40 cores total to a 2-way system with perhaps 8-12 cores total (going forward, this cost structure essentially kills the new AMD Bulldozer 16-core processor, which had just recently achieved price performance competitiveness with the Intel 6-core Westmere-EP in 2-way systems).
Microsoft's new licensing is basically telling us we should buy Intel instead of AMD.
Granted, they are still better than Oracle on the price-front, but that doesn't mean they should have raised prices like this... |
Michael D'Angelo
(former)MVP-MIIS, Pace University Senior Systems Administrator (Windows)
(MS)NMDANGE
PhoeniX WorX Systems Administrator. If you play Total Annihilation, please join us. http://www.phoenixworx.org |
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DennisMCSE
Moderator
Canada
2400 Posts
Status: online |
Posted - 11/18/2011 : 11:50:12 AM
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So how does this compare to Oracle licensing now? If I remember correctly, Oracle licenses by core, but they have some weird "multi-core factor" pricing structure depending on what processor platform you have:
Enterprise Edition Per-core licensing
Multi-core processors are priced as (number of cores)*(multi-core factor) processors, where the multi-core factor is:
0.25 for SUN's UltraSPARC T1 processors (1.0 GHz or 1.2 GHz)
0.50 for other SUN's UltraSPARC T1 processors (e.g. 1.4 GHz)
0.50 for Intel and AMD processors
0.50 for Intel Itanium Series 93XX or earlier Multicore chips (For servers purchased prior to Dec 1st, 2010)
0.50 for SUN's UltraSPARC T2+ processors (updated Oct 1 2009 - previously 0.75, see note below)
1.00 for IBM's POWER6 and POWER7 processors
0.75 for all other multi-core processors
1.00 for single-core processors
1.00 for Intel Itanium Series 93XX (For servers purchased on or after Dec 1st,2010)
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DennisMCSE
Blog: http://itprofirewalker.wordpress.com/
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Isaac
Here To Stay
USA
208 Posts
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Posted - 11/18/2011 : 5:14:11 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by timberk
[snip]
Instead of throwing more hardware at Database Performance problems, developers will have more motivation to improve the performance of queries.....
~tb
yeah, right.
It took MS resellers like CDW-G and MS representative 3 month to get back to us how many proc licenses of SQL EE 2008R2 we need for 1 VMx 2 vCPUs- which is running on the host with 2 pCPUs x 4 Cores x HT enabled. After much back and force the answer was 1 proc license, and guess what, if you buy 2 proc licenses then under some rules you could run 4 VMs with EE 2008R2.
Now imagine how long it will take when the per core/ + VMs come into play |
Edited by - Isaac on 11/18/2011 5:20:50 PM |
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Microsoft to license SQL Server 2012 by core
