Understanding License Normalization

Azure Hybrid Benefit (AHB) allows organizations to apply their existing on-premises SQL Server licenses with active Software Assurance to Azure resources, reducing costs.

Note:AHB currently does not support license normalization for Windows Server.

Licenses are applied using a normalized core (NC) system, where:

•

1 SQL Server Enterprise core license = 4 NCs

•

1 SQL Server Standard core license = 1 NC

This conversion ratio is consistently applied across various Azure SQL resources, including SQL Databases, SQL Managed Instances, SQL Elastic Pools, and SQL Server on Azure VMs.

For example, to fully cover a resource consuming 16 vCores with Enterprise licenses, you would need 4 Enterprise core licenses (16 NCs / 4 NCs per Enterprise license).

For more details on AHB and normalization, refer to Microsoft’s documentation How licenses apply to Azure resources.

Note:AWS does not support license normalization.