Calculating your Microsoft licenses in a virtual world does not have to be a daunting task. At least, not anymore. After all, when trying to architect and implement your virtualization environment, you have enough to deal with like capacity planning, which virtualization platform is the right choice for this environment, how am I going to migrate my physical into the virtual, how do I learn this new technology, Calculating your Microsoft licenses in a virtual world does not have to be a daunting task. At least, not anymore. After all, when trying to architect and implement your virtualization environment, you have enough to deal with like capacity planning, which virtualization platform is the right choice for this environment, how am I going to migrate my physical into the virtual, how do I learn this new technology, what do I need to manage it, and so on. The last thing you want to struggle with is licensing, how many and how much?Microsoft is trying to make that process a little easier, and I think, has done a really fantastic job. Only a few months ago, they announced the first version of this calculator. Now, they offer an overhauled version of the license calculator with a whole new approach… and it is still free! The new calculator lets you interactively build virtual machines running multiple Microsoft server products to estimate the licenses and costs for Windows Server by edition (Standard, Enterprise and Datacenter) and many Microsoft server products. It starts with configuring your server based on virtualization technology, sockets and clustering requirements, and then builds the virtual machines. The first step in this calculation process is to select how many processors you have. It doesn’t ask for the number of cores, so make sure you answer with the number of physical processors. (If you have 2 quad-core processors, you need to select “2” processors, not 8.)Next, the calculator asks you about clustering. If you need it, the calculator will provide license and cost estimates for Windows Server Enterprise and Datacenter Editions but will rule out Standard Edition since it doesn’t support this feature.Finally, it asks for your choice of virtualization platform technology. In addition to pricing for Microsoft Virtual Server, it also offers the option of selecting a 3rd-party (non-Microsoft) virtualization technology that sits on top of Windows or a 3rd-party (non-Microsoft) virtualization technology that installs on ‘bare metal’ or a hypervisor platform. So go ahead and try it out. Add in your virtual machine environments to the calculator and select which Microsoft products are being installed in each, such as BizTalk, Exchange, MOM, SharePoint, SMS and/or SQL.You can try the licensing calculator, here. Software Development