How do you add an instance to your local SQL Server installation? You run the executable that you probably downloaded from MSDN or maybe from a CD. Works the same on an Azure VM right? Sure… but wait. Do I have to go and download the software to my VM instance? Let’s assume that you’re running one of the VMs from the Gallery, then, the answer is “No.” Just navigate to C:\SQLServer_12.0_Full. There you’ll find the full installation setup for SQL Server. And you’re off and running… Until you realize that you don’t have the Product Key for this thing. What happens when you get to this screen:

You can look around all you want and you won’t see a product key anywhere. At least no where that I could find. So what do you do? Same question was asked and answered over on this forum at SQL Server Central. The trick is to get the product key from SQL Server. I tried several different methods, the ones you’ll find if you search for how to get the product key from an existing copy of SQL Server. But finally, as was posted on the forum, a method that worked was found. I tested it out and I was able to add an instance to a VM from the Gallery.

Which brings up the next question. Did I just violate some type of licensing with Microsoft? Lordy I hope not. But I did some research. This definition of the support policy at Microsoft says that anything that is not explicitly denied in that documentation, that is normally supported is still supported. There’s nothing in there about multiple instances. There’s nothing in the basic Azure Licensing FAQ. There’s nothing against this in the Pricing details either. And since the standard iron version of SQL Server allows you to have as many instances running on a given server that you want, from what I can tell, this still applies here.

Personally, I don’t think I’d want to run multiple instances on a single Azure VM. I wouldn’t really want to run multiple instances on a VM or, in some cases, even on iron. Multiple instances frequently have difficulty playing nice. I can’t see that getting any better inside Azure. However, there’s nothing to keep you from doing it except tracking down that Product Key. Get that, and you’re golden.

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