Licensing

When migrating server instances to Google Cloud or installing SQL Server on an existing instance in Google Compute Engine (GCE), you may want to use PAYG licensing. To ensure compliant billing for PAYG, the corresponding SQL Server license string must be attached to the VM’s boot disk.

When migrating server instances to Google Cloud it can be required to change licensing for the sofware that is running within the instance. This can be to use pay-as-you-go (PAYG) licensing for products such as SQL Server or adding additional support packages for Linux derivatives.

When deploying a VM running certain operating systems such as Windows Server, a license is added to the boot disk of that instance. This license is used for billing PAYG licensing.