I have a host with dual CPU, each 6 cores and HT enabled. So during the setup of my VM I can set up to 24 vCPUs. I did read up on this whole vCPU thing and my understanding is that x vCPUs means that a maximum of x threads from my VM can run simultaneously on the physical CPUs. So let's say I assign 4 vCPUs to my VM. This means a maximum of 4 threads from my VM can run at the same time on the physical VM. As mentioned above, my host has a total of 24 cores (counting HT). This means my VM can consume a maximum of 4/24 = 17% of the physical CPU power available. Is this understanding correct?
Assuming I understood the above correctly, then in order to not waste physical CPU power (I only have two VMs, hence they could use max 34%) I could simply increase the number of vCPUs to the full 24 and have hyper-v allocate resources between the host and 2 VMs. However, that means my Server 2012 R2 Standard sees 24 CPUs while the licensing only allows 2 CPUs. So how can I take full advantage of the physical CPU power without getting in trouble with licensing?