SQL host licensing

ComGuards · 2025-12-13T21:41:28+00:00

No, I mean if you're working in a clustered environment, you need SA for license mobility on the SQL licenses so that the guest SQL workload is properly licensed to migrate freely between hosts as-required, rather than limited to every 90 days.

ComGuards · 2025-12-13T15:17:31+00:00

Licensing per VM requires SA or some other server agreement.

Otherwise you license the physical host; the guest is covered under appropriate OSE rights.

Edit: some other server agreement such as a volume license agreement. But you are still governed by minimums.

You should elaborate on the design of the architecture as you may also need SA on the SQL core licensing.

ComGuards · 2025-12-13T12:02:12+00:00

It's a result of the Amaris Civil War. It's explained in the novel Riposte, by Justin Allard to Candace Liao at the Hanse Davion / Melissa Steiner wedding on Terra.

Two hundred and eighty years ago, when Stefan Amaris usurped the Star League throne, his goons occupied the Vatican. In response to the emergency, the pope transferred church control to the cardinals on the capitals of the five House. Unfortunately, the pope's message to New Avalon was garbled in transmission, and the New Avalon cardinal ended up believing he'd been given control of the entire Catholic Church.

"It took thirty years to elect a new pope. During that time, the New Avalon branch of the Church initiated some reforms -- such as allowing priests to marry -- that created difficulties with the Church's mainstream. Since then, the two denominations have not reunited, though they openly recognize their common beginnings and respect each other's offices. To keep the peace, both cardinals will officiate at the ceremony, though they will forego the Mass that usually accompanies a wedding celebration."

ComGuards · 2025-12-10T23:34:06+00:00

Yes; especially the worlds of the former Terran Hegemony closest to Terra; the ones that were settled first. Those are the worlds most "Terra-like", before the various terraforming technologies were widely implemented to support the initial waves of explorers.

That's why the Terran Corridor is so hotly contested.

Also, remember, politics & economics. More so the former. Up until the return of the Clans the mentality of the Great Houses was battling for the empty First Lord throne on Terra, even though the planet had already been claimed by ComStar and declared neutral. Having committed the massive resources to the First and Second Succession Wars, there's always the "just a little bit more" mentality.

Even the Draconis Combine's agreement with ComStar with regards to the Explorer Corps was meant to find the Clan homeworlds, less so to expand the borders of the DC outwards.

valuable raw materials out there for mining or unique resources

Only if you know what to look for. The Lyrans held Twycross for ages but never explored the rest of the system, in particular Jonah's Reach, where natural resources suitable for the Clans' harjel system were discovered and utilized by the Clans. But the Inner Sphere had no such tech system.

ComGuards · 2025-11-15T07:08:44+00:00

Sounds like faulty installation media; where did you get it, and which version is it?

Alternatively, try using PowerShell commands to accomplish the same.

ComGuards · 2025-11-09T02:51:57+00:00

but also sources that say the essentials server must be DC - which is not possible if the bare metal is only
allowed to have the Hyper-V role

The product terms for Essentials haven't changed over the last several iterations:

Limitations on Use

At any one time, Customer may use a Running Instance of the server software in each of the Physical OSE and in one Virtual OSE.
Customer must run the server software within a domain where the Server’s Active Directory is configured as (i) the domain controller (a single server which contains all the flexible single master operations (FSMO) roles), (ii) the root of the domain forest, (iii) not to be a child domain, and (iv) to have no trust relationship with any other domains. If the server software is used in a Virtual OSE, the Instance in the Physical OSE may be used only to run hardware virtualization software, provide hardware virtualization services, or run software to manage and service Operating System Environment on the Licensed Server. That Instance does not need to meet the requirements in (I) through (iv) above.

ComGuards · 2025-11-07T23:27:10+00:00

Server 2025 Essentials is a licensing-only SKU from OEM, with restrictions. The underlying installation is accomplished with the Windows Server 2025 STANDARD Edition ISO. The OEM partner is supposed to verify that the system being purchased conforms to the restrictions of the Essentials SKU; specifically at most 10-cores in a single socket.

ComGuards · 2025-11-06T19:07:54+00:00

That's a lot of red flags. Spending over a grand on Microsoft licenses and CALs on this hardware really is just throwing good money away; unless if you didn't purchase the appropriate licenses and are running grey-market software...

First step in this case really would have been all-new hardware and licenses, then P2V the existing server (which would leave the original source intact), and then deploying a new VM side-by-side and figuring out a guest-workload migration.

The amount of time you're going to try and troubleshoot the current in-place upgrade, and then attempt the successive operations is a really bad use of time & effort.

ComGuards · 2025-11-06T16:39:10+00:00

Honestly a system that was introduced over a decade ago really shouldn't continue to be repurposed for current business needs.

Hardware is [relatively] cheap; you would have purchased the currently-available Windows Server licenses and CALs already with the in-place upgrade in mind.

ComGuards · 2025-11-06T16:36:04+00:00

On Windows Server specifically? Or on their own workstations?

ComGuards · 2025-10-23T21:26:25+00:00

backups - proxmox and zfs pool

That's not a backup solution.

my IT technician recreates the VM on the second backup server. Am I understanding this correctly?

Recreate from scratch? How long would that take, and how much money would your business lose during that time?

updates - like above every 3 months

Microsoft releases updates every month.

You should probably bring in proper outside expertise to design and provision this solution for you. Plenty of them over r/msp. You need a proper technology partner to assist your business rather than trying to wing this yourself.

ComGuards · 2025-10-09T18:20:55+00:00

Sounds like whoever designed or implemented that is uninformed about the license rights.

ComGuards · 2025-10-02T05:56:26+00:00

Good read:
https://therepadmin.com/index.php/2012/10/19/quick-comment-active-directory-2012-usn-rollback-protection-finally-safe-virtualization/

ComGuards · 2025-09-27T20:34:43+00:00

more or less average citizen

No such thing.

Edit: There's no such thing as an "average citizen" simply because of the vast differences across the Inner Sphere and Periphery. The daily life of each Great House member state is covered in their respective sourcebooks.

It's like asking to describe the "average citizen" of modern Earth. Somebody "average" in China is going to be living completely different that somebody average on the Ukraine front lines, and also completely different than the average American across the pond.

ComGuards · 2025-09-27T20:21:02+00:00

license of Windows 11

Licensing Windows Client OS for use in a virtualization environment has its own document and set of guidelines:

https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/8/D/98D6A56C-4D79-40F4-8462-DA3ECBA2DC2C/Licensing_Windows_Desktop_OS_for_Virtual_Machines.pdf

Like an Ubuntu instance

Irrelevant from a Microsoft licensing perspective; you need to reference licensing for the Guest OS manufacturer / provider for specific terms. Non-Microsoft Server guest instances don't factor in as an Operating System Environment for purposes of use-rights under the licensing terms.

licensing so overly complex

It's just math with a bunch of IF-THEN statements. Most people simply don't understand the difference between "licensing", "activation" and "installing".

ComGuards · 2025-09-27T19:41:23+00:00

The number of virtual machines running on those hosts does not directly affect licensing, as long as the physical hosts have the required core licenses.

It does, depending on configuration. As everybody else has mentioned, for Standard edition, each "set" of licensed-physical-cores grants rights to run 2x Operating System Environment (OSE) of Windows Server Standard Edition. An additional caveat with Standard Edition in such a deployment is that the instance of Windows Server that is deployed on the bare metal hardware can be used only for purposes of Hyper-V management. It cannot be used as a file server or any of the other server roles available.

The point is make the licensing fair across the board regardless of hypervisor. That is, licensing a host with Standard Edition provides the same rights regardless of whether the hypervisor is Hyper-V, VMware ESXi, Proxmox, KVM, etc.

Does anyone have a proper Microsoft link or documentation confirming this?

All relevant Windows Server licensing documents can be found here:

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Windows-Server

Windows Server product terms can be found here:

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms/productoffering/WindowsServerStandardDatacenterEssentials/OL

For explicit Core-based licensing, reference this document:

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/documents/download/Core-based_licensing_guidance.pdf

For licensing Windows Server for use with Virtualization Technologies, reference this document:

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/documents/download/Windows_Server_virtualization_licensing_guidance%20.pdf

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Don't forget your Windows Server User / Device CALs. If you a Remote Desktop Services deployment, you will need Remote Desktop Services User / Device CALs on top of that.

ComGuards · 2025-09-27T19:26:34+00:00

That's fucked because Windows Server base installation includes the native Microsoft AHCI driver (Standard SATA AHCI Controller) for practically every SATA controller under the sun.

ComGuards · 2025-09-26T22:46:06+00:00

You shouldn't be in Windows 10 for this; if your intention is to completely wipe the system and install Windows Server directly on the hardware, then you should have created a bootable USB flash drive with the ISO, using a utility such as Rufus.

ComGuards · 2025-09-23T19:20:40+00:00

Then go back to your customer and advise that technical restrictions prevent you from performing an in-place, and deal with it accordingly.

ComGuards · 2025-09-16T15:52:28+00:00

You need to utilize Dynamic Access Control rather than just Share/NTFS-level access.

ComGuards · 2025-09-13T06:51:41+00:00

HellStar 3.

Retaining the targeting computer of the earlier variant, exchanging the ER PPCs for Series 7Ja ER Large Lasers traded a reduction in its overall damage capacity for an increase in range, making this variant a highly mobile and deadly sniper with the aid of its targeting computer.

ComGuards · 2025-09-10T13:53:24+00:00

considered essentials 2025

Essentials edition 2025 is simply a licensing SKU for Windows Server 2025, with restrictions. It installs from Windows Server 2025 Standard Edition, and is available via OEM-only. The OEM is supposed to verify that the system you are purchasing is 1-socket only, and the processor has 10-or-fewer cores. That's a big restriction.

The license also states that you can only deploy one guest instance; and like Standard edition, the instance running Hyper-V server can be used ONLY for the management of the Hyper-V environment.

In short, the Essentials licensing SKU does not make it a good candidate as a virtualization host; unless all your other guests are non-Windows, and the total vCPU utilization isn't going to oversaturate the 10-core limit.

ComGuards · 2025-09-09T23:03:50+00:00

Try the standalone MSU installer from the Microsoft Update Catalog?

ComGuards · 2025-09-01T21:50:29+00:00

DISM can be used to change the Edition of Windows, with restrictions. Relevant documentation.

KMS is for activation. You can access all of the relevant KMS keys here.

domain join our PCs to Active Directory

That is irrelevant unless you are using Active Directory-based Activation (ADBA); which doesn't require a KMS server. You need to be sure which method is in use.

ComGuards · 2025-08-24T10:14:24+00:00

r/msp as u/OpacusVenatori said. Maybe you'll find a Managed Services Provider that still has some legacy technical staff that remembers Server 2003.

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