SQL Server 2025 Licenses Cores. VMs Still Need SA.

You opened a 2025 licensing URL. Keep it. SQL Server 2025 is what Microsoft lists as the current commercial product. SQL Server 2022 is still what a lot of estates run. They are not the same page.

The Product Terms for SQL Server (EA/EAS/SCE) list SQL Server 2025, date available 11/25. Prior version is SQL Server 2022 (11/22). Microsoft announced general availability on 18 November 2025. New version rights still sit on Software Assurance or a subscription. This page is the 2025 metric. Microsoft’s SQL Server 2025 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.

The 2022 metric stays at the SQL Server 2022 licensing guide. The delta stays at the SQL Server 2022 versus 2025 comparison. Lineage stays at the history of Microsoft SQL Server.

That’s the problem.

A host list of SQL installs is not a position. An invented 2-core list price is not a position. The 16-core-per-server floor is a Windows Server rule. Import it onto SQL and you over-license a one-socket box.

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 2025 two ways. Microsoft’s SQL Server 2025 licensing guidance and the SQL Server licensing resources page describe the same split. Product Terms still list 2-packs of Core Licenses for 2025 Enterprise and Standard.

Per Core: you assign core licenses to the server or (with SA or a subscription) to the virtual OSE. No CALs. Unlimited users and devices. Core SKUs are sold as 2-packs.

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 SQL Server 2025 licensing guidance notes this model 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.

Microsoft points Per Core at internet and extranet workloads and at user counts you cannot hold. That is guidance, not a Product Terms ban on Server + CAL. If you cannot name every user and device, including multiplexed access, you cannot close Server + CAL.

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 a subscription).

Floor: four core licenses per physical processor. Not four per server. Not sixteen per server. 2025 licensing guidance: “a minimum of four Licenses per Physical Processor.” Core-based licensing models use the same SQL floor, and they put the 8-per-processor / 16-per-server floor on Windows Server, not on SQL.

Worked shapes:

• One socket, four cores: four SQL core licenses (one 2-pack).
• One socket, two cores: still four SQL core licenses.
• Two sockets, eight cores each: 16 SQL core licenses (eight 2-packs). That 16 is 2 times 8. It is not a SQL server minimum.
• A two-socket Windows Server box with the same chips still hits the Windows 16-core-per-server floor. Do not copy that floor onto the SQL line.

Without SA or a subscription:

• Enterprise: any number of instances across physical or virtual OSEs, up to the number of assigned core licenses. 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 2025 editions page footnotes unlimited virtualization to Software Assurance.

Standard compute capacity is a product limit, not a license floor. Learn 2025 editions page and What’s new in SQL Server 2025 cap a 2025 Standard instance at the lesser of 4 sockets or 32 cores, with a 256 GB buffer pool. 2025 licensing guidance describes the same 32 licensed cores. Do not treat 32 as a purchase minimum. Do not import 2022 Standard’s 24 cores / 128 GB onto this URL. Resource Governor is in Standard on 2025, same functionality as Enterprise.

The VM rule did not reverse

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 Server Virtualization licensing guidance, current Product Terms, and 2025 licensing guidance 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. Do not brief “Standard includes two VMs per licensed host.” That sentence is Windows Server Standard.

Server + CAL on a VM: one Standard server license 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. Sixteen Enterprise cores on the host: up to 16 OSEs, 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. Available for Standard or Enterprise, per core.

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.

Power BI Report Server is in the 2025 license

Product Terms “Use of Power BI Report Server”:

• SQL Server 2025: run PBIRS on the licensed server, on an allowed fail-over OSE, or in Azure, on Standard or Enterprise Edition Core licenses, even without active SA. Cores equal the SQL cores assigned, minimum four per OSE (or four per Azure virtual core mapping).
• Versions prior to 2025: Enterprise Edition Core with active SA only. The right expires when SA expires. Do not teach the 2025 grant as a 2022 grant. That file stays on the 2022 URL.

The Reporting Services consolidation FAQ matches that split. There is no SSRS 2025. PBIRS is the 2025 reporting path. Existing RDL runs on PBIRS. SSRS 2022 keeps security updates through 11 January 2033. A 2022 Standard box without SA does not pick up 2025 PBIRS rights because a blog post shipped.

A Power BI Pro User SL is required to publish shared Power BI reports using Power BI Report Server. That sentence is in Product Terms. It did not go away.

What SA (or a subscription) actually adds on 2025

Use Microsoft’s names.

MCA / CSP software subscription licenses include many of the same use rights as SA. 2025 licensing guidance: License Mobility is “Available with Software Assurance only”. Read the paper in front of you.

Flexible Virtualization Benefit still requires SA or a subscription. Listed Provider clouds are a different file.

2025 edition facts this URL must own

Keep the version-to-version matrix on the SQL Server 2022 versus 2025 comparison. Own these as 2025 rules, not as a feature tour.

• Web edition is not available for 2025. 2022 Web may remain under SPLA. Microsoft: 2022 is the last Web version, supported until January 2033. The on-prem path named is Standard. A 2025 “Web” line on a quote is a fiction.
• Developer is two SKUs. Enterprise Developer matches paid Enterprise. Standard Developer matches paid Standard. Both are non-production. Staging a Standard estate on Enterprise Developer is a feature lie.
• Express is 50 GB per database. Advanced Services folded into Express. Still not a production enterprise license.
• DQS, MDS, Azure Synapse Link, and Purview access policies are discontinued in 2025. They remain supported on 2022 and earlier. If those binaries are why the estate is on SQL, the upgrade is a product decision before it is a core count.
• Native vector types, vector functions, and related AI features are listed Yes for Enterprise, Standard, and Express on the 2025 editions page. They are not an Enterprise exclusive. They do not change how you count cores.

What’s new in SQL Server 2025 and the GA Product Changes section are the feature file. Product Terms are the grant file. Do not flatten them into a list price.

Components stay together

Database Engine, Analysis Services, Integration Services, Reporting Services: one SQL Server license. If DB runs in one OSE and RS in another, both OSEs need a full license. Current licensing guidance repeats it. MDS and DQS were 2022 components. They are not 2025 use rights. Additional software (client tools, SDKs, docs) can run on other devices against a licensed instance. The list is in Product Terms.

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 and not an invented price list.

1. Every instance, edition, version, OSE type. Physical, VM, or container. 2025 versus leftover 2022 called out. Developer, Express, and leftover Web 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. Do not import the Windows 16-core-per-server floor.
3. Whether SA or a subscription sits on those licenses. That single bit decides VM licensing, unlimited virt, failover replicas, Azure Hybrid Benefit, a 2025 upgrade right, and (on 2022 paper) Power BI Report Server.
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 “we need sixteen SQL cores per server” or “Standard includes two VMs” or “Enterprise includes unlimited VMs” or a pasted 2-core list price, you do not have a SQL position.

Picture your procurement director, sixty days out. Finance has this 2025 URL bookmarked. The quote walking in already says 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 2025 quote 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 2025 Enterprise cores, unlimited virt is included, here is the list price.” 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 Standard 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 2025 licensing guidance (models, 4-core floor, VM licensing needs SA/subscription, PBIRS, Web not in 2025, AHB appendix): 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
• SQL Server licensing resources (editions and models table, 2-core packs): https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/product-licensing/sql-server
• Editions and supported features of SQL Server 2025 (32-core Standard, 256 GB, Resource Governor, AI table, unlimited virt footnote, Developer split): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/editions-and-components-of-sql-server-2025
• What’s new in SQL Server 2025 (Standard 32/256, Web discontinued, Developer split, DQS/MDS/Synapse Link/Purview, Express 50 GB): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/sql-server/what-s-new-in-sql-server-2025
• SQL Server 2025 generally available (Product Changes: Web last in 2022, support until January 2033, PBIRS, Standard Developer): https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/sqlserver/sql-server-2025-is-now-generally-available/4470570
• Reporting Services consolidation FAQ (SSRS 2022 through 11 Jan 2033; PBIRS is the 2025 path; prior versions still Ent+SA): https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/reporting-services/reporting-services-consolidation-faq
• Compute capacity limits (Standard 32 cores in 2025, 24 in 2022 and earlier): https://aka.ms/sqlcapacitylimits
• Core-based licensing models (SQL 4-per-processor vs Windows 8/16; VM licensing needs SA from 2022): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Core-based-licensing-models
• Server virtualization licensing guidance (SQL 2022 VM rule carried forward): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Server_Virtualization
• Flexible Virtualization Benefit (Authorized Outsourcers, SQL still licensed by VM): https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/guidance/Flexible-Virtualization-Benefit