Windows 8.1 was designated end of support on January 10, 2023. This means technical assistance and software updates will no longer be provided. Microsoft will not be offering an Extended Security Update (ESU) program for Windows 8.1.
Windows Server Virtual Machine Licensing and Flexible Virtualisation
Late last year Microsoft announced two significant changes to Windows Server licensing. They were both long requested changes and it’s great to see them happen.
Firstly for customers with active Software Assurance (SA) or subscription licenses, they can license Windows Server at a virtual machine level, in their own or an Authorised Outsourcers datacentre. This means you can move the licenses as often as needed within the server farm, so no 90 day rule as the license moves with the VM. You simply license the virtual cores, with a minimum of 8 per VM, or 16 cores minimum per customer.
And secondly with the new Flexible Virtualisation benefit customer can use their SA or subscription licenses in an Authorised Outsourcers datacentre even on shared hardware (previously shared hardware was a no-no).
These two benefits can be combined.
An Authorised Outsourcer for these purposes is an outsourcer that is not a listed provider (Alibaba, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, https://aka.ms/ListedProviders) OR using a listed provider as a datacentre provider.
