server query @pparks1 or other server users

Hi folks

particularly @pparks1

I'm messing around with 180 day FREE evaluation of Winserver 2022 -- what's the difference between the standard and datacenter desktop versions -- Is it worth creating both as VM's and messing around (no probs as both are activated for 180 days) or for essentially a home user just wishing to play around with servers to learn a bit more about them. I've messed around with the previous version with the standard desktop - but is there any value to try the datacenter version,



From my experience so far with these later servers Windows servers seem to operate nice and fast and are bloat free - taking the best from W10 and W11 as a sort of hybrid OS. I'd also imagine running Hyper-V on a server would work much better too for running multiple VM's.

Thanks in advance

Cheers
jimbo

The primary difference with datacenter is licensing. For example, on standard windows server, you are entitled to run 2 VM's (that are fully licensed) on a box licensed with standard edition. But with datacenter, you are allowed to run an unlimited number of VM's on that host (basically up to what the hardware would allow).

Let me give you a practical example. Let's say at work that I want to setup a Hyper V farm. Let's say that I have 3 physical servers and I load Windows 2022 standard on all 3 boxes. With the licensing I paid for with my physical boxes, I can run a total of 6 Virtual machines. Any remaining virtual machines would "technically" require their own individual licenses. So, let's say for example that Server 2022 standard cost $600. So, I would have 3 licenses at $600 each, so $1800. Now, if I need say 8 total VM's....I would have to buy 2 additional server licenses so, $600 x 2 is $1200 more. Now, I have a total of $3,000 invested.
Now, instead you could buy Server Datacenter edition per server. Let's say those licenses are $6,000 per server. So, you spend 3 x $6000, or $18,000. But now you can run as many Windows VM on each hypervisor as you want with no additional licenses required. So, if you were going to run say 40 VM's, you would have needed $600 x 40 or $24,000 if you were using standard edition. But with datacenter, there is no additional cost. I totally made up the numbers here, but there is a break even point to where if you are going to run x number of VM's....it's better to license datacenter edition.

There are a few other differences, Datacenter supports software-defined networking, software-defined storage, shielded virtual machines, Host Guardian Hyper-V support, and storage replica volumes are not limited to 2TB as they are in standard version.



If it's me, with a 180 day eval license, I would always just run DataCenter so that I have absolutely everything available to me. But it is nice to know what's not included with standard so if you are working for a company and you have to make a recommendation on which version they need, you understand which features are not available.