2012 Enterprise Edition Max Number of Cores

Question

I was seeing on the 2012 Editions page

http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/en/us/future-editions/sql2012-editions.aspx

It shows that the 2012 Enterprise edition will have a 20-core maximum per server license...does this mean systems that utilize more cores...such as 4 way SMP systems that would have either 6 or 8 or even 10 core processors wouldn't utilize all the resources in the system?

I apologize if this post is in the wrong area, I could not find a generic sql server forum...

Thanks,
john

---

John Wildes | Hitachi Data Systems | Director - Microsoft Technologies | Converged Platforms

Answer 1

Hi John,

 

The limits are per instance. If you have multiple instances on the same physical server you could fully utilize all of the resource on the physical server. Note this limit only applies to the Server/CAL licensing mode and not when the Enterprise Edition is licensed Per Core.

Haydn

Answer 2

So on a 40 core box, I could setup two SQL server Enterprise instances and utilize all 40 cores? r/ john

---

John Wildes | Hitachi Data Systems | Director - Microsoft Technologies | Converged Platforms

Answer 3

Yes. Each instance could use a maximum of 20 cores but you could utilize all 40 cores across two instances.

Answer 4

Haydn,

Thanks for the info. 

Does anyone from Microsoft want to comment on this?  Now that the release of 2012 has occured?  I'm reading licensing information and it is not clear if all versions have this limitation, or if it is purely a licensing and technical limitation for the Enterprise edition.

r/

john

---

John Wildes | Hitachi Data Systems | Director - Microsoft Technologies | Converged Platforms