SQL Server License Consolidation Savings

Optimizing the distribution of SQL Server VMs (servers) provides cost and compliance benefits, although the upfront analysis effort is complex. The illustration provides a before-and-after comparison for an organization with a medium number of VMs running the SQL Server database management software on a collection of physical hosts (hardware). The objective of the consolidation effort is to co-locate the SQL Server VMs onto a smaller set of physical hosts (hardware) to optimize server license utilization and reduce annual cost of license maintenance (Software Assurance [SA]).

Before (top) shows 40 SQL Server VMs spread across 10 physical hosts. Because of the sparse distribution, each SQL Server VM is licensed individually, which requires a minimum of four core licenses per VM under Microsoft’s rules, often resulting in each VM having excess capacity. In aggregate, this results in higher annual SA cost than necessary:

• SQL Server Standard edition