VM licensing for MS

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Hi,
New to to VM so please excuse the simplicity of this question, but after reading the excellent VMWare guide by Phoenix I started to wonder if this would be a good solution for my company, but have always been put off by the licensing costs?

Using VMWare I propose 5 virtual 2003 standards sitting on an 2000 server host, how many 2003 licenses would I require? My guess is 5 x 2003 and obviously the 1 x 2000 license is that correct?

Also I noted that its good for DR purposes, is anyone able to clarify how that would work? Does VMWare store the config as an image that is easily migrated onto another server should the sh|t hit the fan? I'm sure its not that easy, but is that the general idea?

Many thanx for you valuable advice.

G

 

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For production usage you would be better off seeking the Enterprise class product, VMware ESX Server

there are other methods of licensing too

for instance
retail price of Windows 2003 Enterprise is $2,999
retail price of Windows 2003 Datacenter is $1,999 per PROCESSOR (so you would need say, 2 on a dual processor (even if they are quad core each) box
but the Datacenter license entitles you to run as many virtual instances on the licensed processor as you like

so for $4000 you have unlimited Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter instances, plus the cost of the ESX license

there is a lot to think about in a project like this though
let me know if you need more help

 

Thanx Phoenix,
At present I have the folowing:
1 x 2000 web server [Live]
1 x 2000 SQL server [Live]
1 x 2000 SQL/IIS failover server
1 x 2000 SQL/IIS development server
1 x 2000 SQL/IIS staging server

Could I use VMWare server to run the "non live" servers on 1 server rather than the 3 they are currently on? If so would I again need 3 2000 server licenses or just the host machines license? Additionally if I backup up the images of these virtual machines would I be able to restore to another host?

Sorry if this sounds thick

 

Using VMware server as a development platform is an option
however to run a decent performing SQL server and IIS and additional SQL server on the same box you will need to make sure that the memory is sufficent

you would still need licenses
however if your removing the OS from the individual pieces of tin and virtualising it you are just moving the licenses, which is supported as long as you don't have OEM copies

 

Thanx again Phoenix, you have probably saved me some hard work & time, as all our servers are Dell OEM so no chance of me deploying the scenario suggested.

Cheers anyway Ive learnt a bit more today....

have a good weekend

Gary

 

It's unusual to find OEM Server licenses to be honest mate, you dont have an enterprise agreement in place or anything like that?

 

Hi,
I look after 8 Dell PowerEdge servers which I think are all OEM. I right click on my computer | Properties | Registered to ******OEM*****

Is that the correct way to check?

Cheers
G

 

Well that generally means its an OEM install yes, which limits your deployment rights considerably
i'd check out with your microsoft account manager if you have one

 

Hmm, not looking good for work purposes.

Could I ask another question about VMWare server? If I installed it on an XP desktop and created 2 virtual machines [XP Pro & 2003 standard], could I then move these to another drive? I am thinking of throwing it all on a USB HDD so I can study at work and at home. Also if I have a base install for both OS could I not then create another virtual server with this image rather than go through the install again?

My MCSA studfy books turned up this morning, so I wanna get cracking!..

Kind regards

G

 

You can just copy/clone the data from workstation
but you will need to use sysprep on the new image or it will have the same UIDs as the old machine
thus causing problems in a domain environment

you can move the files to a USB drive and simply re point vmware at them
thats not a problem