MS SQL Server 2019 Licensing FAQ (unofficial)
We’ve put together this FAQ to help you navigate through the SQL Server 2019 licensing options
and to answer some of the most common questions related to SQL licensing in different deployment scenarios.
For information about SQL Server 2022 see the
MS SQL Server 2022 Licensing FAQ.
What editions are available with SQL Server 2019?
What licensing options are available for SQL Server 2019?
Howto license a SQL server under the Per Core licensing model?
How to license a SQL server using the Server + CAL licensing model?
How to license a container running SQL Server software?
What editions are available with SQL Server 2019?
SQL Server is offered in the following editions:
- Enterprise Edition is suitable for mission critical applications and data warehousing.
- Standard Edition provides core database capabilities for mid-tier applications. It is limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores, and to less than 128 GB buffer pool per instance.
- Web Edition is offered on Azure and by other cloud and hosting providers. It is suitable for entry level databases supporting small and mobile applications. Web Edition is limited to lesser of 4 sockets or 16 cores, and to less than 64 GB buffer pool per instance.
- Developer Edition is a free fully functioning version of SQL Enterprise Edition licensed for development, test, and demonstration purposes only.
- Express Edition is a freely downloadable and distributable edition suitable for entry level databases. It has limited scalability and compute capacity - lesser of 1 socket or 4 cores, and 1410 MB buffer pool per instance.
- Evaluation Edition is a fully functional trial version of SQL Server 2019 that automatically expires after 180 days.
For more information see the SQL Server 2019 editions datasheet and the Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2019 web page.
What licensing options are available for SQL Server 2019?
SQL Server Enterprise Edition can be licensed only under the Per Core model.
SQL Server Standard Edition can be licensed either under the Per Core model
or under the Server + CAL model.
For SQL Server 2019 Big Data Clusters, customers can purchase SQL Server Enterprise
or Standard Per Core licenses for master instance and Big Data
Node cores for Big Data Nodes or worker nodes.
Core licenses are sold in packs of two. That is, one
SKU, called 2 core pack, contains two core licenses.
SQL Server Licenses are platform agnostic and permit deployment and use on Windows or Linux systems.
What is Software Assurance?
Software Assurance (SA) is an optional software support offering available through the Volume Licensing programs. SA is purchased together with the base license and must be renewed on a periodic basis to remain active.
SA provides many benefits, including:
- 24x7 support.
- New Version Rights. Customers are entitled for a free upgrade to a new version of the software when it becomes available.
- Unlimited Virtualization (applicable to SQL Server 2019 Enterprise Edition under the core licensing model only).
- License Mobility within a server farm allows reassignment of SQL Server 2019 licenses within a server farm more than once every 90 days.
- License Mobility through SA allows reassignment of SQL Server 2019 licenses to third party shared servers.
- Passive Fail-Over servers for high availability, disaster recovery
and/or for disaster recovery in Azure without additional SQL licensing costs. For each on-prem
server operating system environment (OSE) licensed with SQL Server 2019 and covered by
active SA, customers can use the following passive replicas in anticipation of a failover event:
- One passive fail-over replica for High Availability in a separate OSE;
- One passive fail-over replica for Disaster Recovery in a separate OSE;
- One passive fail-over replica for Disaster Recovery in a single VM on Azure.
- Azure Hybrid Benefit for SQL Server enables customers to use SQL Server licenses with SA to pay a reduced rate (base rate) on SQL Platform-as-a-Service options, such as Managed Instance, vCore-based Single Database, and vCore-based Elastic Pool; on SQL Server in Azure Virtual Machines (including, but not limited to, Azure Dedicated Host); and on SQL Server Integration Services.
For more information on these and other SA benefits, see the Software Assurance overview web page.
How to license a SQL server under the Per Core licensing model?
Under the Per Core licensing model, each server running SQL Server or any of its components must be assigned an appropriate number of SQL Server 2019 core licenses. The number of required core licenses depends on whether customers are licensing a physical server or individual virtual operating system environments (OSEs). OSE is defined as an operating system (OS) instance installed either on a physical server or on a virtual machine.
To license SQL Server Enterprise or Standard running in a physical OSE, all physical cores on the server must be licensed with the respective SQL Server 2019 licenses. A minimum of four core licenses is required for each physical processor on the server.
For example:
- a server with two 8-core CPUs needs 2 x 8 = 16 core licenses or 8 two-core packs;
- a server with one CPU with two cores (if you still can find one like that) requires 4 core licenses (to satisfy the requirement of a minimum of four core licenses per processor).
There are two options for licensing SQL Server in a virtualized environment under the Per Core licensing model:
- to license individual virtual machines (VMs);
- to license the entire physical server with Enterprise Edition.
In order to license an individual VM (virtual OSE) for SQL Server Enterprise or Standard, all virtual cores (v-cores, virtual processors, virtual CPUs) allocated to the VM must be licensed with the corresponding SQL Server 2019 licenses, subject to a minimum four-core license per VM. For example:
- a VM configured with 6 vCPU requires 6 core licenses or 3 two-core packs;
- a VM configured with 2 vCPU requires 4 core licenses (to satisfy the requirement of a minimum of four core licenses per VM).
If all physical cores on a server are licensed with SQL Server Enterprise Edition, customers can run SQL Server software in a number of OSEs (physical and/or virtual) equal to the number of core licenses assigned to the server. In such configuration there are no restrictions on the number of vCPUs that can be allocated to each OSE.
Additional core licenses can be assigned to a fully licensed server to increase the maximum number of VMs permitted to run SQL Server software. Each additional core license allows deployment of SQL Server software in one additional VM.
Maximum virtualization can be achieved via the SA Unlimited Virtualization benefit. Customers are permitted to run any number of instances of SQL Server 2019 Enterprise Edition software in an unlimited number of VMs on a server with all physical cores fully licensed with SQL Server Enterprise Edition and covered by Software Assurance.
For more information about SQLServer Per Core licensing model see the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Licensing guide.
How to license a SQL server using the Server + CAL licensing model?
The Server + CAL licensing model is applicable to SQL Server Standard Edition only. In order to license SQL Server Standard Edition software under the Server + CAL licensing model customers need to purchase a server license for each operating system environment (physical server or VM) and a client access license (CAL) for each user (User CAL) and/or device (Device CAL) accessing SQL server or any of its components. A Device CAL is required for every device not operated by humans. For human operated devices, such as PCs, mobile phones, hand-held terminals, User CALs or a Device CALs can be used. A single CAL permits access to any number of licensed SQL servers.
SQL Server CALs are required for all users or devices that input data into, query, or view data from a SQL Server database either directly or indirectly (through a pooling device, an intermediary system or product, a web-based application, etc.). Such technique of aggregating or pooling connections to a SQL server is defined as “multiplexing”. Multiplexing does not reduce the number of CALs required. To learn more about multiplexing and its impact on SQL Server licensing see the Multiplexing - Client Access License (CAL) requirements brief.
In situations where users or devices can not be accurately counted the Per Core licensing model should be used.
For more information about SQLServer Server + CAL licensing model see the Microsoft SQL Server 2019 Licensing guide.
How to license a container running SQL Server software?
Containers and virtual machines are considered the same form the licensing perspective.
All rules and conditions applicable to VMs under the Per Core and Server + CAL
licensing models are also applicable to containers.
How to license different SQL Server software components?
Any Operating System Environment (OSE) running any of the licensed SQL Server components must be fully licensed.The list of licensed components includes:
- SQL Server Database Engine (DB),
- Analysis Services (AS),
- Reporting Services (RS),
- Integration Services (IS),
- Data Quality Services (DQS),
- Master Data Services (MDS),
- SQL Server Machine Learning Services,
- Machine Learning Server Standalone.
Management tools and other software identified as Additional Software in the Licensing Terms can be generally distributed and run on any number of devices for use with a licensed instance of SQL Server software.
What is License Mobility?
There are two distinct mobility-related Software Assurance benefits - License Mobility Across Server Farms and License Mobility through Software Assurance. License Mobility benefits are available for all editions of SQL Server 2019 under the Per Core and Server+CAL licensing models.
With License Mobility Across Server Farms customers can reassign SQL Server licenses to different servers within a server farm as often as needed.
With License Mobility through Software Assurance customers can reassign licenses, once every 90 days, to servers in another server farm or to third party shared servers (non-private cloud). In the latter case additional rules and conditions apply. For more details see the License Mobility through Software Assurance Customer Program Guide.
For each SQL Server Core licence with active SA coverage customers can use one virtual core in a VM (OSE) deployed on the third party shared server infrastructure, subject to a minimum of 4 core licenses per VM.
For each SQL Server licence (Server + CAL licensing model) with active SA coverage, customers can deploy one VM (OSE) on the third party shared server infrastructure. In this scenario SQL CALs must have active SA coverage as well.
Without SA:
- Customers can reassign SQL Server licenses to different servers, but not sooner than 90 days since the last reassignment of the same licenses. In the event of permanent hardware failure or loss, the 90-day reassignment limit is waived.
- Customers cannot reassign licenses to a non-private cloud at any time. This includes dedicated hosted cloud services offered by Microsoft, Alibaba, Amazon (including VMware Cloud on AWS), and Google.
Note: In this context server farm means a single data center or two data centers each physically located either in time zones not more than four hours apart, or within the European Union (EU) and/or European Free Trade Association (EFTA). A data center can be moved from one Server Farm to another, but not on a short-term basis. A given data center may only be part of one server farm.
How much do SQL Server licenses cost?
As per the SQL Server 2019 pricing page the approximate costs for different license types are as follows (US$):
- Enterprise Edition (2-core pack) - $13748
- Standard Edition (2-core pack) - $3586
- Standard Edition (server) - $899
- Standard Edition (CAL) - $209
The yearly Software Assurance cost can be estimated at 25% of the base license cost.