Simplifying Windows Workloads: New Licensing Features for NC2 on Google Cloud

The promise of the cloud has always been about flexibility, efficiency, and running your business on your own terms. For many organizations, a significant part of that infrastructure relies on Microsoft Windows workloads and the extensive range of Enterprise products you can run on them. While multiple public cloud options exist, true cloud freedom isn't just about being able to move a workload; it's about having genuine choice in how you procure, consume, and remain compliant.

That's why we're pleased to share that a joint technical collaboration between Google Cloud and Nutanix engineering has developed an approach to help organizations using Microsoft Windows support compliance when running on Nutanix Cloud Clusters (NC2) on Google Cloud.

Whether you want to leverage your existing investments or streamline your billing, we are introducing two new capabilities to simplify Windows Server licensing on NC2 on Google Cloud.

1. Bring-Your-Own-License (BYOL)

NC2 empowers you to maximize the value of your existing investments when migrating to the public cloud. Microsoft supports enterprises porting some Windows licenses to Google Cloud under certain BYOL conditions.

To help support your compliance efforts with Microsoft's licensing terms, Nutanix and Google Cloud have introduced a customized node maintenance procedure. When you choose to BYOL to NC2 on Google Cloud, Nutanix will no longer replace nodes when they are due for routine maintenance. Instead, we will directly invoke Google Cloud's in-place maintenance. This approach is designed to help ensure that your licenses do not move to a different physical host more than once every 90 days, aligning with Microsoft's documented licensing requirements while keeping your infrastructure secure and up-to-date.

2. Windows Server License-Included Bare Metal Instances

For organizations looking for a more streamlined procurement and billing experience, we are also introducing the ability to deploy NC2 with Windows Server License-Included (LI) bare metal instances.

By choosing Windows LI nodes at deployment and registering your Windows Server VMs with Google Cloud KMS, you can procure the licenses required for your workloads. Google Cloud will undertake to bill you monthly for the Windows Server licenses (for all cores) allocated to these nodes, consolidating your expenses and reducing the need to manage separate license agreements.