I agree that a little creative thinking is required.

The aspect that causes us a problem is the removal of the server/CAL licensing model from the Enterprise Edition. We have a mirrored pair of Enterprise Edition SQL Servers where the Principal is licensed under the CPU licensing model (it serves data for external consumption) and where the Mirror is licensed under the Server/CAL model (it's used to serve internal reports from a snapshot). With the licensing change we'll have to license both (2 x quad-core) servers under the new CPU core model which almost doubles the amount we'll have to pay come renewal time (under SA).

We're taking advantage of the change in licensing to refresh our (five year-old but still perfectly capable) servers, and in doing so reducing the CPU count to keep the annual license renewal cost approximately the same as it is now. We're just waiting for Intel to release their upcoming Xeon E5 range before going ahead as I've got my eyes on the E5-2643.

Of course there will be a cost associated with the new hardware, but it will effectively pay for itself the first year. As a bonus we get shiny new higher-spec servers to play with, and we relieve the existing servers for use elsewhere.

Thanks to Microsoft, the justification for this hardware refresh, which probably wouldn't have happened otherwise, was very easy.

Chris