19 June 2009 12:13
tonyrogerson
Licence "experts" - SQL 2008 Standard Clustering and the Active/Passive requirements
I'm migrating one of my clients from SQL Server 2000 to SQL Server 2008, they currently have an active/passive SQL Server 2000 cluster and we are going to keep the same architecture but on SQL Server 2008.
The licence "expert" first states that SQL Server 2008 Standard edition doesn't have clustering - so, that got corrected with a link onto the MS website; now I'm told you need two licences for a SQL Server 2008 active/passive cluster - wrong again and here are the bits from MS...
http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx:
Q. If I am doing log shipping in an active/passive failover configuration, how should I license the backup server?
A.
In this scenario, the passive server does not require a license, unless the passive server has more processors than the active server, and the active server is licensed under the per processor model.
Basically if you have 1 physical processor (cores doesn't matter) in your active and you have 2 physical processors in the passive then that is not legal; but, if you have 1 in the active and 1 in the passive then that is legal.
Another link: http://www.microsoft.com/Sqlserver/2005/en/us/special-considerations.aspx#passive
So....
3 servers (all with 1 physical processor), two in a active/passive cluster and one a standalone server that I'll log ship to for DR.
Licence requirements...
2 x Windows 2008 Enterprise x64 because you need Enterprise to do clustering on Windows 2008.
1 x Windows 2008 Standard x64 - standalone box.
1 x SQL Server 2008 Standard x64 Processor licence which covers the Active node; the two failover "passive" servers are covered in the EULA as follows:
(from http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/Downloader.aspx?DocumentId=2235 available via http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/userights/DocumentSearch.aspx?Mode=3&DocumentTypeId=1)
For SQL Server 2008 Enterprise, Standard, Web and Workgroup:Fail-over Servers. For any operating system environment in which you run instances of the server software, you may run up to the same number of passive fail-over instances in a separate operating system environment for temporary support. The number of processors used in that separate operating system environment must not exceed the number of processors used in the corresponding operating system environment in which the active instances are running. You may run the passive fail-over instances on a server other than the licensed server.
I know its a rant, but these guy are suppose to know their stuff when selling products - its not that often we get a new version!
Filed under: SQL Server Licencing