Hi all,I’m having nightmare with SQL Server licensing and I hope someone can help.We have an Enterprise Agreement with Microsoft and we have licensed one of our SQL Server platforms with SQL Server 2012 Standard Edition, buying 40x 2-core packs (80 cores in total).The infrastructure is a little difficult to explain but here goes…..We have two physical 2-node clusters, with one cluster in each data centre (DC1 and DC2). Each node has 2 physical CPUs (sockets) with 10 cores each.Each cluster hosts 8 SQL Server instances – 4 for production and 4 for DR. They are split so each node hosts 2 production and 2 DR instances. The way it works is that each production instance can failover to the other node (local HA) and there is log shipping to the associated DR instances in the other data centre (remote DR).As there are active instances on all nodes we have licensed every core.Now…. It appears a new application has a requirement for Enterprise Edition. The application is only ‘active’ in DC1 and will use 2 instances (of the 8), but they instances cannot be hosted on the same node under normal circumstances. It will also use the 2 associated DR instances in DC2.A few questions:1. If I purchase new licenses for one entire cluster (2 nodes) in DC1 for Enterprise Edition (40 cores) and I upgrade 2 instances to be Enterprise Edition can I re-use my already purchased Standard Edition licenses elsewhere? (I assume that I can have cross edition rights from Ent to Std for the remaining 6 instances).2. Can I upgrade the 2 DR instances in DC2 (hosted 1 per node) and only use them for DR with Software Assurance from the Enterprise licenses in DC1?3. Is it a supported configuration to mix Standard and Enterprise edition instances on the same cluster? (I’m not saying it is a good idea, but are there any references that say it isn’t supported).4. What are the pits falls from using this approach?5. Would it make a difference if the licenses were SQL Server 2014 and not 2012?
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