Skype for Business and SQL Server 2014 licensing
With Skype for Business Server 2015, the usability for SQL Server has advanced once more. We have now a couple of possibilities. Today I'm going to discuss all of them and will advice the actual licensing strategy based on SQL Server 2104 in regards to Skype for Business Server 2015 recommendations. The general licensing guides are available here: http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/product-licensing/sql-server-2014.aspx One generic topic I have to discuss first. In many cases we are using Hyper Visor technologies, meaning the SQL servers are virtualized. Here one important consideration you should keep in mind. If the SQL Server is virtual AND you use CPU CORE licensing, you can run as many virtual SQL on a single PHYSICAL host as you want. You only need to license the physical CPU of that host. This applies to all physical hosts uses. Say you have 3 VMWare/ Hyper-V physical servers, and you run three SQL server. You will position 1 and 2 on 2 physical hosts only (n