SQL Server 2008 R2 Virtual Licensing Headaches

If virtualization licensing wasn’t already difficult enough, should your company be contemplating virtualizing SQL Server 2008 R2, it might just have gotten harder. The problems center around the new Datacenter Edition which customers must buy if they want to have unlimited virtualization rights. However the Datacenter costs double what the Enterprise Edition for SQL Server R2 costs, which of course can now only support up to four operating system environments. Licensing costs themselves have risen for the Enterprise and Standard editions as well.