Microsoft Physical Core with SA
Available from 9.2.6. The Microsoft Physical Core with SA metric is used to determine the licensing cost of Microsoft products. It is based on the number of physical cores that are deployed on the host where the software is installed. When the software is installed on multiple hosts, all cores from all hosts contribute to metric utilization. Because this license type is based on physical cores, the same number of cores is assigned regardless of whether the software is installed on a physical host or on a virtual machine.
Supported software
Reporting of the metric is supported for Microsoft SQL Server 2012, 2014, and 2016 (Standard and Enterprise).
Requirements
To report the number of physical cores for the discovered Microsoft software, the licensed software must have Software Assurance.
Limitations
When a computer on which the software was discovered is deleted, report columns related to server
capacity show <no data>
in the user interface. Information about computers that
contributed to the metric peak value is available in the audit snapshot regardless of whether these
computers were removed.
Examples
The following examples describe how the number of required licenses is calculated. They are based on sample data.
- Example 1: Software is deployed on a physical server
-
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise is installed on a physical computer with four dual-core processors. According to the licensing terms, each dual-core processor is assigned four cores which gives 16 cores in total. Metric utilization for Microsoft SQL Server is 16.
Table 1. Metric utilization for software in a physical environment Host 1 Physical processors on the host 4 Physical cores on the host 8 Core licenses needed 16 - Example 2: Software is deployed on two virtual machines
-
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise is installed on two virtual machines that run on a host with 10-core processor. The cores are shared by the virtual machines. The number of virtual cores that are assigned to a virtual machine is ignored and BigFix Inventory reports the total number of physical cores on the host. Metric utilization for Microsoft SQL Server is 10.
Table 2. Metric utilization for software in a virtual environment Virtual Machine 1 Virtual Machine 2 Virtual cores 8 16 Physical cores on the host 10 10 Physical processors on the host 1 Core licenses needed 10 - Example 3: Software is deployed on two virtual machines that were migrated between hosts
-
Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise is installed on two virtual machines that run on a host with 10-core processor. Both virtual machines are migrated on the same day to a host with a 12-core processor. Metric utilization is checked once per day at midnight (GMT). Taking advantage of License Mobility, all licenses from Host 1 are reassigned to Host 2. Metric utilization for Microsoft SQL Server is 10 for the period before the migration, and 12 starting from the day of the migration.
- Example 4: Software instance uses a different license metric
- Two instances of Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise are discovered. The first instance uses the Microsoft Physical Core with SA metric. The second instance uses a different metric, for example Microsoft Virtual Core with SA. To ensure that only the first instance contributes to the calculation of the Microsoft Physical Core with SA metric, reassign the second instance to the proper metric. If the metric is not available in the software catalog, exclude the instance from pricing calculations. For more information, see: Assigning components to products, and Excluding and suppressing software instances.
- Example 5: Two software instances use the same metric and are installed on the same server
- Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Enterprise and Microsoft SQL Server 2014 Enterprise are discovered on one server. Both instances use the Microsoft Physical Core with SA metric. Metric utilization is counted once for this server regardless of the number of installed instances.
Reading metric utilization
Publisher | Product Name | Metric Quantity | Server Cores | Core Metric | Comment |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Microsoft | Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition | 44 | 12 | 12 | |
Microsoft | Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition | 44 | 32 | 32 | |
Microsoft | Microsoft SQL Server Enterprise Edition | 44 | 0 | 0 | Incomplete virtualization hierarchy |