Hyper-V replication licensing
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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?
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@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.
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@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.
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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.
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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?
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@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.
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Countdown to a Linux mention in 5...4...3...
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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I would still recommend licensing the two hosts, that prevents this type of thing coming up in the future.
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@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.
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@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.
