I decided to add a calculator to demonstrate the licensing components of the per core Windows Server 2016 Licensing Model. The intent here is to give you a general idea of how many 2-Core Packs you may need and what it may cost to license Windows Server 2016. If you want more information on how the licensing works please check out my first article. Have fun!
Disclaimer: All pricing on here is MSRP. Actual pricing may vary greatly. This is not a quote nor should it be considered factual. This is a hypothetical guess at what pricing and core pack licensing is based on the MSRP pricing available at the time. You should contact your Reseller or LSP to get actual pricing or quotes. I didn’t include Single CPU (Socket) or less than 8-Cores as options because of the 16-Core Minimum. The Software Assurance costs are based on 2 years Open License or 3 Years Open Value and it’s ~25% per year. I picked the higher cost User CALs for this calculator at ~$43 per CAL, Device CALs are ~$38 per CAL.
Useful. Thanks, Shawn!
Hello thank you for that great Calculator, helps me much. These costs are one time costs ?
Thanks for visiting and you’re welcome! To answer your question, Yes, currently Windows Server licensing is perpetual. If you bought Software Assurance you would have to pay SA annually or every few years depending on what your terms were.
Shawn,
Thanks for making this great calculator. Could you add the new Windows Server 2016 24core license option? Might make more sense for some people
I found these but I don’t know if they are accurate (Classic MS licensing strategy)
P71-08670 Datacenter
P73-07132 Standard
Thanks for the feedback. Unfortunately, the 24 core options MSRP price isn’t any different than buying 2-core packs of either Standard or Datacenter. I’d be curious to see if using those part numbers would make it come in cheaper in an actual quoted price though versus the 2-core packs.
For Standard ed with VMware and 16 cores per host with 20 VMs spread between them, we have to license each host for 20 @ 8k per host?
I wrote a very detailed article explaining how the licensing breaks down between Standard and Datacenter at the following link: https://virtuallyinclined.com/2016/11/22/microsoft-takes-a-shot-at-vmware-with-windows-server-2016-licensing-changes-and-enforcement-push/
Simply put, when using Standard licensing you have to license every host (physical server) for all the VM’s that could potentially run on them by way of HA or vMotion. If you have 2 hosts, for example, you have to license all cores on both hosts for the number of VM’s you have. Check out the article I linked as I go into quite a bit more detail of how it works and why, if you go over a certain threshold, Datacenter licensing is the only way to go. Thanks for reading!
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