Affinity masking and licensing

  • Can someone help shed some light on this? Say I have an 8 proc box, and I used affinity masking to only allow SQL access to 4 CPU's, would I have to license on 4 CPU's or 8?

    I'm not sure how to interpret the information from M$:

    http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/faq.mspx

    Q.What exactly is a processor license and how does it work?

    A.

    A processor license gives you the right to install any number of copies of SQL Server 2005 on a single computer, as long as you have purchased processor licenses for all of the processors on that computer. If you have made a processor inaccessible to all operating system copies on which the SQL Server software is set up to run, you do not need a software license for that processor. In a virtualized environment, processor licenses are required for every processor that is accessed by a virtual machine. Please see the virtualization licensing brief and virtualization white paper for further detail. Find out more about how Microsoft Adapts Windows Server System Licensing to Virtualization Scenarios.

    In addition to the installation rights to the actual server software, processor licenses also grant any number of devices or users the right to access and use the server software running on those processors. These access rights are available to all devices or users, regardless of whether they are inside the organization (intranet scenarios) or outside the organization (intranet or extranet scenarios). The processor license contains all that you need. With a processor license, there is no need to purchase separate server licenses, CALs, or Internet connector licenses.

  • The licensing, from what I've understood in the past, is that you license all CPU sockets that are occupied on your system, regardless of affinity. I tried to license a 4 CPU system as 2 using affinity and our MS rep said that was not legal.

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