SQL Server 2012 - Capacity Limits by Edition

Question

I have a question about the capacity limits of SQL Server 2012.
The documentation http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms143760.aspx points to an interesting limitation of the SQL Server 2012 Enterprise Edition:
Enterprise Edition with Server + Client Access License (CAL) based licensing is limited to a maximum of 20 cores per SQL Server instance.
This sounds like a technical limitation. How does the Enterprise Edition know that it is running in CAL based licensing and not in Core mode? I know that older Editions like SQL 2000 had a tool to set the license mode. Is there a similar tool available for
SQL 2012?

Answer 1

Hi Tron,
Once the decision on the licensing vector is made, the DBA or organization must decide whether to license under the Server & CAL model, or under the Core-Based Licensing model. Server & CAL has been around for years, and simply refers to the model where
one license applies for the server on which SQL Server is installed (note that multiple instances are allowed) and one CAL applies for the user or application service accessing the licensed SQL Server. One CAL is required for every user or application service
regularly connecting to SQL Server.
Please refer to the articles below for the details.
Understanding the SQL Server 2012 Licensing Model
http://www.mssqltips.com/sqlservertip/2942/understanding-the-sql-server-2012-licensing-model/
Thanks
Candy Zhou
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