Updated: July 10, 2020 (April 8, 2013)
Analyst ReportEditions, Requirements, and Resources
In addition to the Standard and Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2012, Microsoft offers several special editions targeted for specific customers and workloads. This chart shows the editions, target uses, availability, costs, and some important characteristics of each.
The previous Windows Server 2008 R2 HPC edition and Windows Server 2008 R2 Web Server have been discontinued. To replace HPC Server, Microsoft has provided an HPC Pack that can be used with Windows Server Standard or Datacenter and applied to various other servers, clients, and Azure compute instances to provide workstation nodes. Microsoft also offers grants for customers who have Software Assurance on discontinued editions to move to one of the new 2012 editions. Several products are available only through OEMs.
An overview of Windows Server 2012 licensing is given in “Windows Server 2012 Editions and Licensing Changes” on page 16 of the Aug. 2012 Update.
| Windows Server 2012 Edition | Intended Audience and Workloads |
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