Help Me Choose: Server Operating System

The Windows Server 2022 Essentials Edition is designed for small businesses with up to 25 users and 50 devices. Licensing is socket based. Essentials Edition supports up to 10 cores and 1 physical or virtual environment on single-socket servers. User and Device Client Licenses are not required nor available.

The Windows Server 2022 Standard Edition is designed for businesses with more than 25 users and 50 devices which can run business-critical workloads in your datacenter, on cloud, and at the edge. Standard edition comes with 16 core-based license pack, plus additional Client Access Licenses (CALs). License includes permission for two OSEs or Hyper-V isolated containers. It has advanced multi-layer security against threats, and improved tools for hybrid-server management. It is great, cost effective option for small-to-medium-sized business with flexibility to go-as-you-grow with additional virtual licenses available at the time of purchases or after. Windows Server Standard Edition license limited to single Storage Replica volume up to 2TB. Additional Standard licenses are available for purchase.

The Windows Server 2022 Datacenter Edition is ideal for highly virtualized datacenters and cloud environments and corporations of all sizes. It allows users to run an unlimited number of Windows Server instances on a server, in physical and virtual environments, including containers. It includes all the features of the Standard edition plus support encrypted virtual machines, Hybrid integration, software-defined networking, Storage Replica, and software-defined storage. Licensing remains processor-core based with minimum of 16 core licenses per server and minimum 8-core licenses per processor.

Ubuntu is a free and open source operating system and Linux distribution based on Debian. Ubuntu is offered in three official editions: Ubuntu Desktop for personal computers, Ubuntu Server for servers and the cloud, and Ubuntu Core for Internet of things devices. New releases of Ubuntu occur every six months, while long-term support releases occur every two years. Support subscriptions for Ubuntu can be purchased for 1 year, 3 years and 5 years.

Red Hat^® Enterprise Linux^® (RHEL) is an open source operating system designed for edge of network and core data center workloads. RHEL is a subscription-based operating system licensed in 2- and 4-socket versions. Within each socket licensing is an additional licensing option to choose one virtual image, four virtual images or unlimited virtual images to run on top. RHEL can be used in small, medium and large corporate and government organizations without additional licensing and comes in 1, 3- and 5-year subscriptions.

SUSE^® Linux Enterprise Server (SLES) is an open source operating system designed to handle workloads running in large data center environments down to single-server environments. SLES is a subscription-based operating system that allows you access to patches, fixes and security updates through their customer portal. SLES subscriptions can be used on 1, 2- and 4-socket servers and can be purchased in 1 year, 3-year and 5 year subscriptions..

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