Does a side-by-side upgrade require additional licenses?
18-01-2024 18:55Assume that Contoso is a manufacturer with 24x7 operations and business critical server systems. They want to upgrade their physical servers from Windows Server 2016 to Windows Server 2022. An ‘in place upgrade’ (i.e. upgrading on the same physical server) is not an option because these servers cannot be shut down during the upgrade. As an alternative, Contoso can perform a ‘side-by-side’ upgrade. This means buying new hardware, deploy the higher version of the software on the new hardware, put the new server into production and subsequently decommission the old server. This upgrade method means that, for a ‘short’ period of time (days, weeks, may a couple of months), there are two physical servers running the Windows Server operating system. Must this be licensed? How can this be licensed? Does Microsoft allow a temporary dual-deployment under the same license? Or does Contoso needs something ‘extra’, like Software Assurance? Let’s find out.