Unlimited Virtualisation Rights with Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition

As of October 1, the new Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition and Windows Server 2003 Datacenter Edition licenses will include unlimited virtualisation rights, meaning that customers will have rights to run an unlimited number of Windows Servers in virtual machines without purchasing additional licenses.  Customers may run Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter, Enterprise and Standard Editions in the virtual instances, as well as, previous versions, without having to acquire additional licenses. This will make the licensing of Windows Server for virtualizations much easier as well as help companies save money through server consolidation.

For example, a customer could consolidate its datacenter Web farm onto a single physical server running Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition, hosting virtualized images of the Web servers. The Web farm’s footprint will shrink from a room to a single server - and the customer will only need to license the processors on the server that is running Windows Server 2003 R2 Datacenter Edition.

You can click here for more detail on Microsoft's virtualisation solutions