A solid foundation for consolidating your workloads
Windows Server 2025 Datacenter is the edition designed for infrastructures where virtualization plays a central role. Small and medium-sized businesses, IT service providers, test labs, production environments: it allows you to consolidate numerous virtual servers on a single physical machine, simplifying administration and maintenance of your server fleet.
Unlimited virtual machines
With the Standard edition, each license allows two virtual machines. The Datacenter edition has no such limit: on the covered server, you can deploy as many Windows Server virtual machines and Hyper-V containers as your hardware allows. The higher the virtualization density, the more cost-effective this edition becomes.
What the Datacenter edition offers
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Hyperconverged storage with Storage Spaces Direct, which combines the internal drives of several servers into a shared pool
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Volume replication with Storage Replica, useful for a business continuity plan
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Software-defined networking (SDN)
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Enhanced isolation for sensitive virtual machines with Shielded VMs
- Secure remote file access with SMB over QUIC, GPU sharing between virtual machines, and optimized support for NVMe drives
About the 28-core license
Windows Server licensing is based on the number of physical cores. This version is suitable for a server with a maximum of 28 physical cores, for example, two 14-core processors. The required minimum is 8 cores per processor and 16 cores per server. CALs (client access licenses) are sold separately and are still required for users or devices connecting to the server.
Order delivery
Perpetual digital license with no renewal. The product key, download link, installation guide, and invoice are sent to you by email. Activation is carried out online through Microsoft's activation servers.
System requirements
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Processor: 64-bit, 1.4 GHz or faster, with support for x64, NX/DEP, CMPXCHG16b, LAHF/SAHF, PrefetchW, SSE4.2, POPCNT, and SLAT (EPT/NPT)
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RAM: 512 MB in Server Core, 2 GB with the Desktop Experience (ECC memory recommended)
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Disk space: 32 GB minimum, more for an installation with a graphical interface
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Network: 1 Gbps Ethernet adapter or faster, PCI Express compatible
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Firmware: UEFI 2.3.1c with secure boot
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Security chip: TPM 2.0, required for certain security features