Windows 2012 Hyper-V CALs question

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wazzab

84 posts

Master Geek

#127382 8-Aug-2013 13:37

I am about to upgrade some ageing servers, and have decided on Hyper-V. We are a small shop running Windows 2003 AD network, with 2 x Win2003 DC servers, 4 x Win2003 member servers and 2 x Win2008 member servers.

If I purchase a new piece of kit and Purchase Win 2012 Server Standard, allowing me to have 2 VMs, if I'm not actually planning on utilising the 2012 Srv Host on our network, do I still need to purchase User/Device CALs for 2012, as the users are technically only going to be communicating with the 2003 and 2008 servers that will be VMs.

Can't seem to find an answer, as the core network will still be Win2003 server running as a VM hosted on a Win 2012 server

Thanks

nathan

5695 posts

Uber Geek
Inactive user

#873849 8-Aug-2013 13:42

You buy CALs for the services your users/devices are accessing. Your users don’t access Hyper-V but the OS inside the guest VMs.

wazzab

84 posts

Master Geek

#873853 8-Aug-2013 13:46

Thanks - so as we have 30 x 2008 User CALs (27 people in office) for our network, I therefore I don't really need any new CALs, as we are not, at this point, accessing the 2012 Host,

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#873862 8-Aug-2013 13:53

There are no CALs for Hyper-V Server. Anything hosted on your Hyper-V platform, however, will require relevant CALs, so in your case, if you are running a 2k8 server on your Hyper-V platform, you will need 2k8 CALs. If you were using Hyper-V to deliver RDS, you would need RDS CALs. What is your Win 2012 Server Standard going to be for, though? If users are accessing it you will need CALs.

wazzab

84 posts

Master Geek

#873867 8-Aug-2013 14:05

Inphinity: What is your Win 2012 Server Standard going to be for, though? If users are accessing it you will need CALs.

This is my first tentative steps into vitualisation. Not wanting too many wholesale changes to my network, I was planning on setting the new kit with full verison of Windows 2012 Server with Hyper-V enabled. Most of my research has led me to believe that the host should really only be a host and nothing else. I realise I could get the free Hyper-V Windows Server 2012 version, but wasn't confident enough with that as it appears it has limited GUI and required powershell skills. I would be more happier, simply setting up a new install of 2012, then take my time rebuilding and P2V'ing my machines into the Virtual environment.

Thanks

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#873873 8-Aug-2013 14:11

wazzab:
Inphinity: What is your Win 2012 Server Standard going to be for, though? If users are accessing it you will need CALs.

This is my first tentative steps into vitualisation. Not wanting too many wholesale changes to my network, I was planning on setting the new kit with full verison of Windows 2012 Server with Hyper-V enabled. Most of my research has led me to believe that the host should really only be a host and nothing else. I realise I could get the free Hyper-V Windows Server 2012 version, but wasn't confident enough with that as it appears it has limited GUI and required powershell skills. I would be more happier, simply setting up a new install of 2012, then take my time rebuilding and P2V'ing my machines into the Virtual environment.

Thanks

Ok, that's fine. Yes, Hyper-V Server is a Server Core installation, with no real GUI. I just wanted to make sure you weren't planning on having, say, the Hyper-V 2012 host as a DC or something as well, because in that case CAL requirements would apply.

wazzab

84 posts

Master Geek

#873882 8-Aug-2013 14:20

Ok, that's fine. Yes, Hyper-V Server is a Server Core installation, with no real GUI. I just wanted to make sure you weren't planning on having, say, the Hyper-V 2012 host as a DC or something as well, because in that case CAL requirements would apply.

In saying that, I'm still unsure on whether the Host should actually be on the Domain or as a Workgroup. There seems to be plenty of opinion by no definitive answer. If I join the 2012 host to the Win2003 domain, as long as users don't actually use/access it, no CALs are required? I was also planning on leaving our newest server of the old servers as a Physical DC, which seems to be best practice.

Inphinity

2780 posts

Uber Geek

#873897 8-Aug-2013 14:34

wazzab:
Ok, that's fine. Yes, Hyper-V Server is a Server Core installation, with no real GUI. I just wanted to make sure you weren't planning on having, say, the Hyper-V 2012 host as a DC or something as well, because in that case CAL requirements would apply.

In saying that, I'm still unsure on whether the Host should actually be on the Domain or as a Workgroup. There seems to be plenty of opinion by no definitive answer. If I join the 2012 host to the Win2003 domain, as long as users don't actually use/access it, no CALs are required? I was also planning on leaving our newest server of the old servers as a Physical DC, which seems to be best practice.

Yes, it can join the domain as a member server. No CALs are required unless you configure services outside of Hyper-V on it. And yes, you want a physical DC if your host is going to be a domain member. For redundancy's sake, I'd suggest at least 2, but that may not be viable for your environment. If the Hyper-V host is a domain member it will need a physical DC in order for it's own authentication in the case of a restart, etc. Thankfully, Hyper-V 2012 is more forgiving than 2008 was of a loss of contact with a physical DC.

Your options on this front are either

a) A physical DC, with the Hyper-V host a member of the domain.
b) No physical DC, but the Hyper-V host cannot be a member of the domain, and at least 1 Virtual DC must be started before any domain member VMs start.

The advantages of a) are that you have a DC that isn't dependent on your Hyper-V host, and you will have an easier time managing the Hyper-V host being a domain member. The disadvantage is that if your physical DC fails or is unreachable, your Hyper-V host will fail to start if you reboot it etc. Thus leading in to the advantage of b) - your Hyper-V host is independent of the state of your domain.

If you intend on going down the Hyper-V Cluster route, your Hyper-V hosts *must* be domain members for Clustering.

Be aware, too, Hyper-V will not allow you to overcommit memory like ESX does. This is good for performance, but means you have to take it into account when speccing the physical host. For example, if your host only has 16GB of RAM, you can't have VMs with more than 16GB (in practice about 14GB due to the host OS overheads) of RAM allocated. Likewise bear network throughput and disk IO in mind.

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wazzab

84 posts

Master Geek

#873921 8-Aug-2013 15:16

Thanks for the detailed reply Inphinity. I was planning on 1 physical DC and 1 VM DC. I guess option A is the way to go, and keep fingers crossed physical DC and the Host do go down at the same time - long power cut scenario only I would hope, unless we had some incredible bad timing hardware failures. If they both did go down, starting physical DC to establish the network, then Host and VMs and we would be away.

Thanks again for your help.