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    Hyper-V replication licensing

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    • Mike DavisM
      Mike Davis
      last edited by

      If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?

      How good is the fail over for replicated servers? Is it like in a VMware cluster where you can have the VM spin up if it senses it went down on the other host?

      DustinB3403D coliverC scottalanmillerS 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 2
      • DustinB3403D
        DustinB3403 @Mike Davis
        last edited by DustinB3403

        @Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

        If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?

        No, the licensing allows you two installations on the same hardware (as VM's go). On the second host, you would need identical, unused licensing to be in compliance.

        Unless you are willing to not fall-back to the failed host until 90 days have passed.

        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
        • coliverC
          coliver @Mike Davis
          last edited by

          @Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

          If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?

          How good is the fail over for replicated servers? Is it like in a VMware cluster where you can have the VM spin up if it senses it went down on the other host?

          You can only transfer licenses once every 90 days, to my knowledge, so if you wanted to be able to move back and forth between the host faster then that you would need to have another Server Standard license to cover the other host.

          I'm not sure about the failover, I originally thought you needed SCVMM to do that but now I think Hyper-V server has that functionality as well.

          scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • DustinB3403D
            DustinB3403
            last edited by

            The reason that licensing is designed like this is you could in essence have 4 VM's with no fail over (2 standard licenses) or 2 VM's with fail over licensing.

            Because, the licensing is still tied to the hardware. Even up to Datacenter. The term datacenter in Microsoft licensing refers to an individual server in which the license was originally activated on.

            So if you have 400 VM's you'd clearly be buying datacenter licensing (and a second datacenter or 3rd 4th or 5 license) for fail over capabilities to different servers.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • Mike DavisM
              Mike Davis
              last edited by

              I think in this case they wouldn't be switching back and fourth. It would be for a major event that they failed over. They would have to have another major failure on the hot spare server in 90 days before they would be failing back.

              I have a client that doesn't want to virtualize. They have a remote office that only needs two servers. They are saying that they don't want to virtualize the servers because of risk. I'm suggesting that with the same hardware, their cost will go down and their protection against downtime will go up.

              They also don't like external USB drives for backup targets. They would prefer tapes and a tape drive. I suggested a rack mount NAS as a backup target if they don't like the look of a external USB drive. What do you all think?

              coliverC DustinB3403D scottalanmillerS 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • coliverC
                coliver @Mike Davis
                last edited by

                @Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                I think in this case they wouldn't be switching back and fourth. It would be for a major event that they failed over. They would have to have another major failure on the hot spare server in 90 days before they would be failing back.

                I have a client that doesn't want to virtualize. They have a remote office that only needs two servers. They are saying that they don't want to virtualize the servers because of risk. I'm suggesting that with the same hardware, their cost will go down and their protection against downtime will go up.

                They also don't like external USB drives for backup targets. They would prefer tapes and a tape drive. I suggested a rack mount NAS as a backup target if they don't like the look of a external USB drive. What do you all think?

                Oof. Yep, you'd be good if you don't need to migrate more often then every 90 days. Probably would be a good idea to make sure you have access to the environment even if those servers are down.

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • BRRABillB
                  BRRABill
                  last edited by

                  Countdown to a Linux mention in 5...4...3...

                  DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DustinB3403D
                    DustinB3403 @Mike Davis
                    last edited by

                    @Mike-Davis To fail over at all (in any reasonable fashion) they would be required to purchase 2 server standard licenses. Who honestly remembers that 90 days have passed, and we can migrate back to our production system.

                    Is the system that they would be failing over to (in an disaster event) match what they have currently? Same specs?

                    The mindset of staying physical because it poses less risk is an emotional response. What you could do (and just for demonstration purposes setup a tiny hypervisor using virtualbox on your laptop, corrupt the OS of the VM. And revert to a backup you've made.

                    If they don't like USB (I agree) then they should really look at a NAS as you've mentioned. The synology line can backup to other Synology quite easily. If the upfront cost of that is out, maybe they can backup to a service provider like BackBlaze.

                    coliverC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • DustinB3403D
                      DustinB3403 @BRRABill
                      last edited by

                      @BRRABill said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                      Countdown to a Linux mention in 5...4...3...

                      You already mentioned it, no reason to repeat it.

                      BRRABillB 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • BRRABillB
                        BRRABill @DustinB3403
                        last edited by

                        @DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                        @BRRABill said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                        Countdown to a Linux mention in 5...4...3...

                        You already mentioned it, no reason to repeat it.

                        I mentioned someone mentioning it.

                        There a subtle difference.

                        DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DustinB3403D
                          DustinB3403 @BRRABill
                          last edited by

                          @BRRABill said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                          @DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                          @BRRABill said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                          Countdown to a Linux mention in 5...4...3...

                          You already mentioned it, no reason to repeat it.

                          I mentioned someone mentioning it.

                          There a subtle difference.

                          I mentioned you mentioning someone else mentioning it. Therefor it's been mentioned.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • coliverC
                            coliver @DustinB3403
                            last edited by

                            @DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                            @Mike-Davis To fail over at all (in any reasonable fashion) they would be required to purchase 2 server standard licenses. Who honestly remembers that 90 days have passed, and we can migrate back to our production system.

                            Is the system that they would be failing over to (in an disaster event) match what they have currently? Same specs?

                            The mindset of staying physical because it poses less risk is an emotional response. What you could do (and just for demonstration purposes setup a tiny hypervisor using virtualbox on your laptop, corrupt the OS of the VM. And revert to a backup you've made.

                            If they don't like USB (I agree) then they should really look at a NAS as you've mentioned. The synology line can backup to other Synology quite easily. If the upfront cost of that is out, maybe they can backup to a service provider like BackBlaze.

                            From the way @Mike-Davis has explained it both systems will be "production" if one fails then the second will take over even when the other one is replaced/repaired.

                            DustinB3403D scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • Mike DavisM
                              Mike Davis
                              last edited by

                              @coliver yes, they want to buy two servers and two licenses anyways. I'm suggesting virtualizing them so that they are not totally down if one goes down. It would be nice to save $600 on a server license since they won't be running on it unless their primary server fails.

                              DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • DustinB3403D
                                DustinB3403 @coliver
                                last edited by

                                @coliver Even in this case, they still would be required to purchase two server standard licenses (1 per host). As you can't split the licensing up like that.

                                Which would give the client the full benefit of the fail over capabilities they don't seem to understand.

                                coliverC 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                • DustinB3403D
                                  DustinB3403 @Mike Davis
                                  last edited by

                                  @Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                                  @coliver yes, they want to buy two servers and two licenses anyways. I'm suggesting virtualizing them so that they are not totally down if one goes down. It would be nice to save $600 on a server license since they won't be running on it unless their primary server fails.

                                  If they are purchasing two servers, and Server Standard licenses for each host, then no additional expense (for licensing Windows) would be required.

                                  And they'd be completely compliant to migrate the VM's around ever minute if they wanted to.

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                  • coliverC
                                    coliver @DustinB3403
                                    last edited by

                                    @DustinB3403 said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                                    @coliver Even in this case, they still would be required to purchase two server standard licenses (1 per host). As you can't split the licensing up like that.

                                    Which would give the client the full benefit of the fail over capabilities they don't seem to understand.

                                    They aren't splitting the licensing. They are doing little other then migrating that licensing. Granted if they have multiple failure events then they will certainly have to get another license.

                                    DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                    • DustinB3403D
                                      DustinB3403 @coliver
                                      last edited by

                                      @coliver I see that now, by @Mike-Davis followup.

                                      I was under the impression the client wanted to simple setup two hyper-v servers (and purchase a single server standard license) for the two host.

                                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                      • coliverC
                                        coliver
                                        last edited by

                                        I would still recommend licensing the two hosts, that prevents this type of thing coming up in the future.

                                        DustinB3403D 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                        • DustinB3403D
                                          DustinB3403 @coliver
                                          last edited by

                                          @coliver said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                                          I would still recommend licensing the two hosts, that prevents this type of thing coming up in the future.

                                          That would be the wise thing to do. The licensing is rather cheap as far as cost goes.

                                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • scottalanmillerS
                                            scottalanmiller @Mike Davis
                                            last edited by

                                            @Mike-Davis said in Hyper-V replication licensing:

                                            If I had a single Windows Server Standard license, and two hyper V hosts and set up replication for the two VMs on host 1, am I good as far as licensing goes?

                                            Yes, you are good.

                                            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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