April 20, 2007 at 7:11 am
We are currently upgrading our servers, right now we have purchased a quad core 64 bit server (currently running in 32 bit mode until we upgrade to sql 2005).
If we add a second quad core processor to the machine will Sql Server Standard 2005 be able to use it? I know that MS has said that they won't count core's as processors when it comes to licensing, but Sql 2005 on these machines does see the cores as separate processors (shows it configured for 4 cpu's).
I guess the question is whether Sql 2005 Standard puts a hard limit on the number of preocessors (can it only be configured for 4 cpu's max) or can it be configured for more with the licensing limitations being understood (if you configure it with 6 physical processor chips it would work but you would be out of license).
Does anyone have any experience with 2005 multicore and processor limitations?
May 1, 2007 at 10:55 am
sql licensing is per socket not per core.
[font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/
May 1, 2007 at 4:36 pm
Yes, I know that. But will SQL Server 2005 Standard 'see' the additional 4 cores after adding the second processor?
Have you done this? I know waht the documents say. I'm just looking for some reassurance from someone who has already done it.
May 2, 2007 at 3:43 am
haven't done this for a quad core but experience tells me the answer is yes, based upon dual cores with HT, had 32 threads on a server.
[font="Comic Sans MS"]The GrumpyOldDBA[/font]
www.grumpyolddba.co.uk
http://sqlblogcasts.com/blogs/grumpyolddba/
May 2, 2007 at 6:55 am
Thank you.
May 2, 2007 at 8:31 pm
I can attest that Windows and SQL 2005 will see 8 cores(CPUs), but it will be licensed as 2 CPUs.
May 17, 2007 at 1:01 pm
It's been a couple of weeks, but I thought that Standard could only use up to 4 CPU's (irregardless of cores) so would you then need to update to Enterprise edition?
You can look at version comparisons at:
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/prodinfo/features/compare-features.mspx
And I'm thinking that even though you're only actually using 4 CPU's and each of those are basically dual cores (I'm assuming you're using AMD's iteration of Quads) that you're going to be limited to only being able to utilize the first 4 "CPUs" that SQL sees, instead of all 8 that the OS can see.
And most likely the OS depending on version will have this same limitation. I can't think of any of the OS's out currently that see above 4 cores w/o requiring the higher end versioning.
Note: I could be completely wrong, so if so take my information with a grain of salt.
June 15, 2007 at 5:30 am
Well, yes. that is the question. Standard edition can only be licensed for 4 cpu's. Does 2 dual core or one quad core fill that limitiation? Or according to licensing docs does one quad core (seen as 4 processors by SQL but only occupying one socket) only take up 1/4 of the licensed capabilty for SQL 2005 Standard?
Earlier responses seemed to indicate the latter.
June 20, 2007 at 9:31 am
each core shows up as a separate CPU
June 20, 2007 at 12:35 pm
OK, here is my answer. It is what I suspected.
http://www.mssqltips.com/tip.asp?tip1164
Problem
In addition to hyper-threading (i.e. multiple threads execute on a single physical CPU appearing as 2 logical CPUs) and dual-core technology (i.e. a single CPU socket that has more than 1 core appearing as multiple logical CPUs), chip vendors are beginning to release processors with more than 2 cores. I am considering purchasing a new SQL Server with multi-core processors to support a SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition deployment. What are the impacts when using a 4-core processor with SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition? Will I only be able to make use of a single physical CPU since Standard Edition is limited to 4 CPUs? Additionally, what is the overall licensing policy in relation to multi-core technologies with SQL Server 2005?
Solution
One key competitive licensing advantage of SQL Server is related to this exact question - for the purposes of both licensing and CPU edition support, SQL Server considers the number of physical sockets/CPUs, regardless of the number of cores on the processor. So, for example, if you are planning to deploy SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition, which supports up to 4 CPUs, that means Standard Edition will support 4 physical CPU sockets, regardless of the number of cores in each CPU. If you have 4 physical CPUs with 4 cores each, then your SQL Server Standard Edition deployment would have 16 logical CPUs to make use of. Additionally, even though you have 16 cores/logical CPUs, the licensing of this requires that you pay for only the 4 physical CPUs, not all 16 cores. This offers a very attractive return on investment (ROI) for any organization looking at the latest hardware with SQL Server 2005.
For additional information on SQL Server 2005 and multi-core licensing, reference the SQL Server Multicore Licensing Policy article.
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