Hi Everyone,
I'm not quite sure what the best forum is to put this under but I've recently been given the task of coming up with equivalent Azure VMs for our small company's on-prem servers. This includes 2 servers that have a different application on each that rely
on SQL Server to function. One server is using SQL Server 2016 Standard and the other is using SQL Server 2016 Express.
I'd like to know if there are any extra fees for creating a blank Server 2019 VM in Azure and moving our copy of SQL Server 2016 Standard to it once I dig up the license key and figure out if it was per core or not. Are we even allowed to try and activate
SQL Server 2016 Standard on the new VM and deactivate it on our current physical server? Is there any licensing issue or fee associated with using a fresh SQL Express installation on a VM in Azure? Will any user or machine CALS that we have purchased transfer
over? As a side note, I'm not even sure if we have any sort of SA on our SQL Server. I believe I have heard that that is a requirement for moving an SQL Server license to another machine but I may be wrong.
I know that MS offers SQL Server VMs that have SQL Server pre-installed but the estimated monthly fees that it shows for them are astronomical compared to a basic Windows Server 2019 VM. This is why I'm thinking it would be best to get a new VM but bring our copy of SQL Server 2016 over to it.
We are also planning on having automated weekly backups of the VMs using Azure Backup. Does having SQL installed on the servers affect the pricing of that at all?
Thanks for any help you can provide.