Gazareth (4/9/2014)
andrew gothard (4/9/2014)
Gazareth (4/9/2014)
Assuming it's 4 octocore processors, take out 2 of them.Edit: Sorry, that's a bit abrupt but it's the quickest way I can think of 🙂
Alternatively create a VM on the server, assign max 16 cores to it & install SQL on that.
I'm not up on SQL 2014 licensing but in earlier version MS didn't allow you to use processor affinity to control licensing so can't think of other ways.
Unfortunately, even you have 16 vcores max, if those 16 vcores can hit 32 pCores you have to license all the pCores. At least that's what I was told last time I spoke to MS.
I was a bit unsure on that myself, but from the Licensing Datasheet:
"To license a VM with core licenses, purchase a core
license for each virtual core (virtual thread) allocated to
the VM (with a minimum of 4 core licenses per VM)."
Yep, I don't think you need affinity on the underlying physical cores, as long as the number of vCPUs matches the licensed cores.
Incidentally, the vCPU cores are tied to a single physical host, so you are not entitled to use vMotion or similar technology within a VM farm, where you may move between different physical hosts from time to time. You need Software Assurance to be allowed to do that.