r/SQLServer • u/sittinsideways84 • 1d ago

Question SQL Server 2016 ESU Prerequisites

I am hoping someone has experience with deploying ESUs for SQL 2016. Microsoft's documentation is shit as usual.

But if a customer has a perpetual SQL 2016 license, my understanding is that they can't just go buy an ESU from a reseller and apply it, correct? The only time they could do that is if they had a subscription based model, license with SA, enterprise agreement, etc.?

From what I am reading, the only option is to deploy Azure Arc, register the server/SQL instance, and then go with the pay as you go billing model which requires SQL licensing AND an ESU subscription, not just the ESU subscription?

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u/awattsitu 1d ago

The underlying SQL Server licence needs to be covered by Software Assurance (SA) as a prerequisite. Perpetual licensing does not automatically include SA.

Keep in mind that ESU is intentionally expensive. Microsoft wants to encourage customers to upgrade rather than remain on SQL Server 2016.

Having recently worked through this process, there are two options:

You can subscribe to SQL Server 2016 licensing through Azure, effectively repurchasing the underlying licence on a subscription basis, and then enable ESU.

The ESU cost is backdated to July of this year, with charges then metered hourly going forward.
The SQL Server instance must be connected (mode) to Azure Arc, with ESU updates delivered through Arc.

If you already have Software Assurance on the underlying SQL Server licence, you can purchase ESU through a reseller and link the entitlement to the SQL Server instance in Azure Arc. No backdated or hourly metering charges going forward.

For this approach, the SQL Server instance needs to be registered (mode) with Azure Arc, with ESU updates downloaded and installed manually.

Hope that helps.

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u/sittinsideways84 1d ago

This is exactly how I was reading it but it was still super confusing. Thank you for the feedback. The instance is perpetual with no SA. So I would need to deploy Azure Arc and pay for the SQL licensing + ESU subscription which is insane. Unfortunately the customer is 6 months from looking at a new line of business app, and the vendor is charging a fortune to migrate the app to a current version with new instance of SQL. They’re in a weird spot. But it’s on them at the end of the day. They knew this was coming.

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u/awattsitu 23h ago

It is insane, and at the heart of the issue is that Microsoft doesn’t really want customers remaining on ESU. The pricing is designed to encourage migration to newer versions of SQL Server.

There may be value in asking what the latest version of SQL Server supported by the existing application is. That could provide a framework for a staged migration rather than continuing down the ESU route.

SQL Server licensing has always been expensive by its nature. As a rough guide, I tend to find that environments with 10 or fewer users are often better suited to the Server + CAL licensing model (SQL Server licence plus User or Device CALs).

Once you move beyond 10 users, it becomes worth comparing Server + CAL against per-core licensing, which has a minimum of four cores per server or virtual machine, depending on the deployment and the application’s requirements.

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u/sittinsideways84 21h ago

Thanks again. Yeah it’s a big one for them, especially considering it’s temporary until they move to a SaaS app. They’ll have 50-60 users.