Running MS Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 - Can i install 2VMS?

Hello everybody...

I am on the way of installing the Visual SVN server and JIRA on our company server and I have few questions to you guys. I have read an article about Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2 running Hyper-V on this webpage:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/sbs/archive/2013/09/03/understanding-licensing-for-windows-server-2012-r2-essentials-and-the-windows-server-essentials-experience-role.aspx

and I am a bit confused. From my understanding of the licensing of MS Server 2012 Essentials R2 I can run Hyper-V role with two VM instances of Windows Server 2012 Essentials at no cost but with only Hyper-V role enabled on a physical server? My question is if I will install Windows Server 2012 Standard on a separate license just fro JIRA and SVN can I run it on a VM without any problem with licensing of Windows Server 2012 Essentials R2? I know it sounds a bit complicated but I could not find the answer on my question anywhere....

Best Regard Wojciech Bogucki

February 22nd, 2015 12:21pm

Not quite. With Essentials you're entitled to install it on the host to act as the Hyper-V management server, and then install a single Essentials guest installation to run all your required services. It's standard addition that allows you have to have two VM's running on it using the host licence.

See http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/briefs/win2008-virtual.aspx for full details of what is and isn't allowed, specifically page 4 of the pdf which references Essentials edition.

In terms of installing an additional VM on there, that's fine. The entitlement described above isn't a limit on the number of VMs that can run on the server, rather it's the number you can install using the existing licence. There's nothing to stop you running additional VMs, they just have to be licenced separately. Again that's detailed in that document.

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February 22nd, 2015 12:49pm

Ok that is great so... So what you are saying now is:

- If I will have licenses for other instances of Windows Server 2012 R2 I can run as many instance as I would like to run with separate licenses on each copy of Windows Server

That's a great news for me and I have just misunderstand the terms and condiitons of the licensing... thank you for your explanation...

February 22nd, 2015 1:12pm

Hi Wojciech,

In addition , I would suggest you to contact MS Activation Center for license issue :

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/existing-customers/activation-centers.aspx

Best Regards,

Elton Ji

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March 7th, 2015 1:48am

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