Microsoft Product Licenses in VMware Cloud on AWS

You have a variety of options for licensing Microsoft products running as workloads on VMware Cloud on AWS. You can use your existing licenses or purchase new licenses through VMware to use with VMware Cloud on AWS.

Bring Existing Windows Licenses to VMware Cloud on AWS

If you've already purchased Microsoft software, and the licenses are eligible, bring your own licenses (BYOL) to VMware Cloud on AWS. Bringing your own licenses allows you to:

• Take advantage of the efficiencies of the cloud while using already-purchased perpetual licenses.
• Extend the lifecycle of your software without additional hardware costs.
• Expedite your migration to the cloud by using existing VM images.

The requirements for bringing your own licenses to VMware Cloud on AWS depend on whether you have Microsoft Software Assurance and license mobility benefits associated with those licenses and when those licenses were acquired.

• If you do not have Software Assurance: You may migrate licenses for products purchased before October 1, 2019, or which were added as a true-up as part of an Enterprise Enrollment that was effective before October 1, 2019. These licenses can only be upgraded to versions that were available before October 1, 2019. See The Amazon Web Services and Microsoft FAQ for more information.
  Note: This scenario particularly applies to Windows Server licenses. Windows Server is not eligibile for license mobility benefits, and therefore you cannot migrate any Windows Server licenses purchased after October 1, 2019.
• If you have Software Assurance: Microsoft License Mobility through Software Assurance allows many Microsoft licenses to be migrated to VMware Cloud on AWS. For more information on License Mobility, see License Mobility.

Subscribe to Windows Server and SQL Server Licenses from VMware

You can subscribe to Windows Server and SQL Server licenses for your use on VMware Cloud on AWS. The licenses are:

• Offered for all hosts in the cluster. All hosts in a cluster must be licensed. You cannot mix licenses purchased from VMware with BYOL licenses in the same cluster.
• Billed based on the maximum number of hosts that were deployed in that cluster during your billing cycle. You are not billed for maintenance or remediation hosts.
• Billing begins when you select the license. If you choose to remove the license, you are billed for the entire billing period. Note that the billing cycle is based on the day of the month when the first VMware Cloud on AWS services were set up for your organization, and not on the calendar month. For more information see View Billing Information.
• After you have selected the licenses, you may deploy an unlimited number of the applicable VMs on the licensed hosts.
• For more information on pricing, see VMware Cloud on AWS Microsoft Server Licensing Pricing FAQ.