Microsoft Windows Server 2016 Download

Microsoft Announced and released Windows Server 2016. The product is available through MSDN, and also available for download as 180 days trial. Already during the MS Ignite, Microsoft has announced the release is imminent… and it was finally released as eval, the October 1st.

We have reported on the different features coming in the Windows Server 2016, like the improvements within the deduplication engine and step-by-step configuration of the deduplication.

Also in Hyper-V, with an interesting feature allowing to Add/remove vRAM while VM is running.

The scalability has been improved over the Windows Server 2012… true, but is that really necessary anymore? If I remember right, already during the vSphere 6.0 release many of my vSphere admins and engineers were saying the same. Scalability isn't much an issue. We have VMs supporting large disks, Monster VMs with a large number of CPU or memory. This is quite insane. Who would run a VMs with 12 TB of RAM?

Here are quite a few articles which we wrote about Windows Server 2016 in the past:

• Windows Server 2016 licensing moves from per Socket to per core licensing model
• Windows Server 2016 – What is the difference between Standard And Datacenter Edition
• Windows Server 2016 Active Directory Installation Guide
• Windows Server 2016 Active Directory Improvements

Download of Windows Server 2016 Evals…

To download, go to this link.

Docker Inc. is announcing the general availability of Docker Engine on Windows Server 2016, with a commercial support and distribution agreement with Microsoft.

Back to our licensing thoughts….

We wrote a post(s) about licensing costs rising in this release. Microsoft announced the Windows Server 2016 licensing in December 2015, where per-core licensing rather than the per-CPU licensing will be used.

Well, today, modern CPUs carries more cores than in the past, so if Microsoft has decided on per-core licensing, it is not for nothing. More cores will require to you to give more money to Microsoft….

Quote from the Microsoft FAQ licensing document:

Licenses for servers with 8 cores or less per proc will be same price as the 2012 R2 two-proc license price. Core licenses will be sold in packs of 2 for incremental licenses needed above the required 8 cores per proc. The Standard Edition of Windows Server and System Center will license up to 2 VMs when all of the physical cores on the server are licensed

Core licenses will be sold in packs of two licenses. Each processor will need to be licensed with minimum of 8 cores which is 4 two-core packs. Each physical server, including 1 processor servers, will need to be licensed with minimum of 16 cores which is 8 two-core packs. Additional cores can then be licensed in increments of two cores (one two core pack) for gradual increases in core density growth. Standard Edition provides rights for up to two virtual OSEs when all physical cores on a server are licensed (minimum of 8 cores per proc and 16 cores per server).

Standard Edition provides rights for up to two virtual OSEs when all physical cores on a server are licensed (minimum of 8 cores per proc and 16 cores per server).

Our Simulation table (based on supposition so far, as no exact guidelines on licensing has been released so far – since december 2015) :

It is pretty much clear that Microsoft, whether you're planning to deploy new servers for virtualization, which will have a lot of cores, then you'll have to probably pay more than you had to in the past.

It may be interesting to compare Microsoft and VMware licensing side by side, when the official licensing docs will be made available to the masses.

You may want to read other posts and details about Windows Server 2016:

• Windows Server 2016 – What is the difference between Standard And Datacenter Edition
• Windows Server 2016 licensing moves from per Socket to per core licensing model
• Windows Server 2016 Hyper-V allows add/remove RAM while VM is running

This post will get updated with more information when they become available. Stay tuned through RSS, and social media channels (Twitter, FB, YouTube)