SQL Server 2022 Licenses Cores. VMs Need SA.

You opened a 2022 licensing URL. Keep it. SQL Server 2022 is still what a lot of estates run. It is not what Microsoft lists as the current commercial product.

The Product Terms for SQL Server (EA/EAS/SCE) now show SQL Server 2025, date available 11/25. Prior version is SQL Server 2022 (11/22). New version rights still sit on Software Assurance or a subscription. This page is the 2022 metric. Microsoft’s current SQL Server licensing guidance is written for 2025. The models did not flip. One 2022 change still decides most true-ups: you may license by virtual machine only with a subscription license or a license with active Software Assurance.

That’s the problem.

A host list of SQL installs is not a position. Edition, physical cores versus vCores, whether SA is on the paper, and whether the instance is a VM, a container, or a physical OSE are different objects. Mix them and you either under-license the VM or you buy Enterprise unlimited virtualization you do not have.

Do not invent a list price. Your number is the quote, the MLS, or the CSP subscription in front of you.

Two models, still

Microsoft licenses SQL Server 2022 two ways. The SQL Server licensing resources page and the SQL Server 2022 Licensing guide (PDF still served by Microsoft, Last-Modified 28 January 2025) say the same thing.

Per Core: you assign core licenses to the server or to the virtual OSE. No CALs. Unlimited users and devices. Core SKUs are sold as 2-packs. Product Terms still list “2-packs of Core Licenses”.

Server + CAL: Standard only for new server licenses. One server license for one instance in one physical or virtual OSE. Stack server licenses on a device if you need more OSEs. A User CAL or Device CAL for each user or device that accesses SQL Server or any licensed component, including indirect access. Multiplexing does not cut the CAL count. Microsoft’s 2025 guidance still describes this model and notes it is not available with pay-as-you-go billing.

Enterprise Server/CAL is a residual. Product Terms: existing customers may renew SA on those server licenses; new Server licenses under that model are no longer available.

Per Core on a physical server

When you license the physical box, you license all physical cores on the server. Software partitioning does not shrink that count unless you are licensing individual VMs (and that VM path needs SA or subscription).

Floor: four core licenses per physical processor. Not four per server. Not sixteen per server. The 2022 guide is blunt: “A minimum of four core licenses is required for each physical processor on the server.” Current Product Terms use the same floor. A two-socket server with eight cores per socket is 16 core licenses, sold as eight 2-packs. A one-socket four-core box is four core licenses, one 2-pack. A one-socket two-core box is still four core licenses.

Without SA or a subscription:

• Enterprise: any number of instances across physical or virtual OSEs, up to the number of core licenses assigned. Sixteen Enterprise cores on the host: up to 16 OSEs. A container counts as a virtual OSE.
• Standard: any number of instances, only in the physical OSE on that server. You cannot license Standard by VM without SA or a subscription.

With SA or a subscription, Enterprise on a fully licensed physical server gets unlimited OSEs (unlimited virtualization). That grant is not in the base Enterprise license. The Learn 2022 editions page footnotes unlimited virtualization to Software Assurance.

Standard compute capacity is a product limit, not a license floor: Learn caps a Standard instance at the lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores. Do not treat that 24 as a purchase minimum.

The 2022 VM rule

Beginning with SQL Server 2022, licensing an individual virtual OSE under Per Core is only for subscription licenses or licenses with active Software Assurance. The 2022 guide, the Server Virtualization licensing guidance, and current Product Terms all state it. SQL Server 2025 did not reverse it.

How to count a VM:

1. Count virtual cores allocated to that virtual OSE.
2. If a virtual core maps to more than one hardware thread, license each hardware thread it maps to.
3. Minimum four core licenses per VM.
4. Sold in 2-packs.

Standard customers under Per Core in a virtualized environment license by VM only. They do not get “license the physical host and run N Standard VMs” the way Windows Server Datacenter works. Do not mix Windows Server rights into SQL.

Server + CAL on a VM: one Standard server license per VM (per virtual OSE), plus CALs. SA is not required to *run* Standard in a VM under Server+CAL. SA or subscription is what lets you move that licensed virtual OSE across servers in the same farm as often as you need.

Unlimited virtualization is not the default

License every physical core on the host with Enterprise core licenses and keep SA or a subscription on them. Then you may run any number of SQL instances in an unlimited number of OSEs on that host. Product Terms: “SQL Server Enterprise Core – Unlimited Virtualization”.

Without SA, the same fully licensed Enterprise host is capped at a number of OSEs equal to the core licenses assigned. The 2022 guide’s worked shape: a four-processor server, four cores per processor, 16 core licenses, up to 16 VMs, regardless of vCores per VM. More VMs means more core licenses assigned to that host.

Do not brief “Enterprise equals unlimited VMs”. Brief “Enterprise cores covering the host, with SA”.

Containers are OSEs

Product Terms “Use of SQL Server with Container Technology”: a container is an OSE. Physical or virtual cores available to that container are cores. Docker, cri-o, containerd: same rule.

Individual container: same math as a VM. Four-core minimum. SA or subscription to license by virtual OSE.

Unlimited containers: with SA or subscription, when you license by virtual OSE, you may run any number of containers inside that licensed virtual OSE. Product Terms: when you elect this benefit, a container is not considered a virtual OSE. That is not unlimited containers on a bare host with no SA.

Failover is three replicas, and they must be passive

Product Terms “SQL Server – Fail-over Rights”, matching current licensing guidance:

For each licensed OSE with SA or a subscription you may run:

1. One passive fail-over replica for high availability in a separate OSE.
2. One passive fail-over replica for disaster recovery in a separate OSE.
3. One passive fail-over replica for disaster recovery on Microsoft Azure.

Passive means the replica is not serving SQL Server data to clients or running active SQL Server workloads. The license count that would be required for the replica must not exceed the primary. These rights require SA on the licensed server and on CALs if any. They do not apply when you deploy under License Mobility through SA.

Licenses without SA or non-subscription licenses do not include those DR/HA replica rights, including fail-over clusters. Do not teach a free Always On secondary on perpetual cores with lapsed SA.

What SA (or a subscription) actually adds on 2022

Use Microsoft’s names, not the garbled live table.

MCA / CSP software subscription licenses include many of the same use rights as SA. The 2022 guide still carves out License Mobility through SA. Read the paper in front of you.

Power BI Report Server changed in 2025: Standard or Enterprise, even without SA. That is a 2025 Product Terms sentence. It does not rewrite a 2022 estate. If the binaries are 2022 Enterprise without SA, you do not have PBIRS from that license.

Components stay together

Database Engine, MDS, Analysis Services, Integration Services, Reporting Services, DQS: one SQL Server license. If DB runs in one OSE and RS in another, both OSEs need a full license. Current guidance repeats it. Additional software (client tools, SDKs, docs) can run on other devices against a licensed instance. The list is in Product Terms.

What 2025 changed that this URL must not steal

Keep these on the 2025 Microsoft page, not as if they were 2022 rules:

• SQL Server 2025 is current in Product Terms.
• Web edition is not available for 2025. 2022 Web may remain under SPLA.
• Power BI Report Server on Standard and Enterprise without SA, for 2025.
• Developer split into Enterprise Developer and Standard Developer in 2025 guidance.
• Standard edition maximum compute in 2025 guidance is described as 32 licensed cores. 2022 Standard instance capacity on Learn is still lesser of 4 sockets or 24 cores. Do not flatten those two sentences into one.

This URL stays 2022 because that is the query and the slug.

What to have this week

Do this before the next true-up, EA amendment, or CSP quote. Produce a SQL pack, not a pasted Microsoft PDF.

1. Every instance, edition, version, OSE type. Physical, VM, or container. Developer and Express called out, not mixed into production.
2. Cores the way Microsoft counts them. Physical cores by processor with the four-core floor, or vCores per VM with the four-core floor and thread mapping. One owner of the number. Infrastructure Mapper is the topology file.
3. Whether SA or a subscription sits on those licenses. That single bit decides VM licensing, unlimited virt, failover replicas, Azure Hybrid Benefit, and a 2025 upgrade right.
4. CALs if any Standard Server+CAL paper exists. Users, devices, multiplexing.
5. What you own versus what you deployed. Microsoft Entitlements Manager is the MLS / entitlement side. Microsoft Deployment Manager is the SQL, Windows Server, and M365 requirement.

Can a non-specialist brief the CIO in fifteen minutes from the pack you have today? If the answer is “Enterprise includes unlimited VMs” or “the VM does not need SA because we licensed the host for Standard”, you do not have a SQL position.

Picture your procurement director, sixty days out. Finance has this 2022 URL bookmarked. The quote walking in may already say 2025. Neither document is the estate. The number is cores after the four-per-processor floor, edition actually installed, and whether SA is on the paper.

The decision layer, not another SQL inventory

You already have MAP, SCCM, or a CMDB full of SQL services. The gap is not another discovery export. The gap is turning that estate into a metric: edition, OSE type, cores Microsoft will count, SA yes or no, CAL population if Server+CAL. LICENSEWARE sits on the inventory and ITSM tools you already run. It is not a rip-and-replace SAM suite. It is a decision layer: what matters, why it matters now, what should happen next. MDM is the deployment file. MEM is the entitlement file. LCM is the renewal file.

If you are heading into a SQL true-up or a 2022-to-2025 conversation and your current tools still need three weeks to separate VMs that need SA from hosts that do not, book an Audit Readiness Review. You can also start on the free plan and run the analysis on your own data.

Do not let the vendor frame this as “just buy Enterprise cores, unlimited virt is included”. Do not let your own side frame it as a 16-core-per-server Windows rule, or as 2025 Power BI Report Server rights on a 2022 box without SA. The right question is: which edition, how many cores after the four-per-processor floor, is this a VM that needs SA, and what does the paper actually grant. That is a data question, not a sales question.

The vendor will walk in with a number. The only question is whether you have yours first: current, defensible, and tied to the contract in front of you.

Sources

• SQL Server 2022 Licensing guide PDF (Microsoft, still served; Last-Modified 28 Jan 2025): https://download.microsoft.com/download/9/3/d/93d32de6-f268-45ed-ba25-2f9a6756b6af/SQL_Server_2022_Licensing_guide.pdf
• SQL Server licensing resources (editions × models table, 2-core packs): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/product-licensing/sql-server
• SQL Server 2025 licensing guidance (current commercial guide; VM licensing still needs SA or subscription): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/SQL
• Product Terms, SQL Server, EA/EAS/SCE (2025 availability 11/25; prior version 2022 11/22; Per Core; fail-over; PBIRS; unlimited virt/containers): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/terms/productoffering/SQLServer/EAEAS
• Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2022 (unlimited virt footnote, Web, scale limits 24 cores Standard): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2022
• Core-based licensing models (SQL VM licensing needs SA/subscription): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Core-based-licensing-models
• Server virtualization licensing guidance (SQL 2022 VM rule): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Server_Virtualization
• Flexible Virtualization Benefit: https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Flexible-Virtualization-Benefit
• Compute capacity limits (aka.ms): https://aka.ms/sqlcapacitylimits