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Licensing Windows Server 2012
Jungle Camp
The introduction of new System Center 2012 server products, SQL Server 2012, and Windows Server 2012 sees Microsoft making some changes to its licensing policy.
Companies need to consider which edition they want to use. For example, the Standard and Datacenter editions have the same feature scope, and there is no such thing as an Enterprise Edition or Web Server Edition.
Editions and Licenses Compared
The most important change in Windows Server 2012 (Figure 1) is that it is only available in the Standard, Datacenter, Essentials, and Foundation editions. The operating system is only available as 64-bit software, just like its predecessor. Companies will primarily be interested in the Standard and Datacenter editions, which offer exactly the same functionality. Thus, you can create your own clusters with the Standard edition and do other things that were previously the reserve of the Enterprise/Data Center editions in Windows Server 2008 R2. The Standard and Datacenter editions differ in Windows Server 2012 only in terms of licensing.
Figure 1: The new Server Manager in Windows Server 2012.
Microsoft describes Windows Server 2012 as a cloud operating system that specializes in virtualization and cloud connectivity. Enterprises can install two virtual servers per license on servers
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