Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance Licensing Guide

There’s a new (September 2022) Microsoft Licensing Guide for Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance. It gives you an overview of the service tiers, and explains how to license containers, how the billing under different connectivity modes works, how to use the Azure Hybrid Benefit, and the licensing for non-production use.

Find this guide here: http://bit.ly/3u7z2es.

SQL Server 2022 licensing

There’s a new SQL Server 2022 Licensing Guide (http://bit.ly/3OeDYqT) and Datasheet (http://bit.ly/3V0dETI), and the Product Terms is also updated (http://bit.ly/3prduoo) for SQL Server 2022. Here are the key licensing changes to be aware of:

  • Licensing by virtual machine with Core licenses is now an SA/Software Subscription benefit
  • When licensing by virtual machine a customer can run SQL Server in any number of containers in the virtual machine
  • Customers with active SA/Software Subscriptions may now use Azure SQL Managed Instance as their preferred fail-over server option in Azure for disaster recovery

SQL Server 2022 licenses with SA or purchased as Software Subscriptions are also eligible for the Flexible Virtualization Benefit, introduced in October 2022, enabling customers to use their licences with any Authorized Outsourcer’s shared hardware. Find the Flexible Virtualization Benefit Licensing Guide here: http://bit.ly/3hGOJ9l.

And finally, there’s the new PAYG option where customers can pay for SQL Server on a consumption basis from $0.1 per hour for a Standard Core, and $0.375 for an Enterprise Core for Azure Arc-enabled servers. Find out more about how that all works here: http://bit.ly/3Arq2UP.

Licensing Windows Server for use with virtualisation technologies

There’s an updated (August 2020) Microsoft Licensing Brief to detail the licensing of Windows Server for use with virtualisation technologies.

There are just small updates made, but this is a useful document if you’re pondering how containers are licensed, how Windows Server licensing changes with VMware or Virtuozzo, or how you license Windows Server for use on Microsoft Azure.

Find this document here: https://bit.ly/3jOPnwN.