At what point should you think about using a different SQL Server 2014 licensing model.
The price indications below are in US$ without software insurance or discounts.
| Licence | Cost (US$) | Notes |
| SQL Server 2014 | 208 | 1 x User or Device CAL |
| SQL Server 2014 Standard | 894 | 1 x server* |
| SQL Server 2014 Standard Core | 3,570 | 2 x cores** |
| SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Core | 13,690 | 2 x cores |
| SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence | 8,555 | 1 x server* |
- You can have up to 50 instances on the server. User and/or Device CALs are also required to be purchased.
** A maximum of 16 cores is supported.
An absolute minimum of 4 cores is required to be purchased when using core licensing. This is either 4 cores per physical socket or 4 vCPUs in a virtual machine. Additional 2 core licences can be purchased after this initial charge. Therefore a starting point for the Standard and Enterprises editions with core licences would have to be:
| Licence | Cost (US$) | Notes |
| SQL Server 2014 Standard Core | 7,140 | 2 x (2 cores) |
| SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Core | 27,380 | 2 x (2 cores) |
Based on the above information, the thresholds between licences would be:
SQL Server 2014 Standard Cores vs SQL Server 2014 Standard with CALs
| Cores | Cost (US$) | Server + CALs | Cost (US$) |
| 4 | 7,140 | 30 | 7,134 |
| 6 | 10,710 | 47 | 10,670 |
| 8 | 14,280 | 64 | 14,206 |
| 10 | 17,850 | 81 | 17,742 |
| 12 | 21,420 | 98 | 21,278 |
| 14 | 24,990 | 115 | 24,814 |
| 16 | 28,560 | 133 | 28,558 |
SQL Server 2014 Standard Cores vs SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Cores
| Standard Cores | Cost (US$) | Enterprise Cores | Cost (US$) |
| 16 | 28,560 | 4 | 27,380 |
SQL Server 2014 Enterprise Cores vs SQL Server 2014 Business Intelligence with CALs
| Cores | Cost (US$) | Server + CALs | Cost (US$) |
| 4 | 27,380 | 89 | 27,275 |
How does Azure fit into this.
Below is a screen shot from the Azure Pricing Calculator in US$. The selected machines have 4 vCPUs.
This is a real rough guide without software assurance considered, but for interest how many days would it take before purchasing your own licences would appear to make more sense?
Enterprise54327,36727,380
| Edition | Azure Days | Azure Cost (US$) | Cost of 4 Cores (US$) |
| Standard | 540 | 7,128 | 7,140 |
Software assurance has become a real consideration point when purchasing SQL Server 2014 licences as passive secondary SQL servers now require software assurance.
Software assurance has catches i.e. it only lasts for a certain term and results in continual payments to Microsoft. It does however have other benefits like software update rights, DR, extended support etc.