Some Context - (You can skip reading this, and probably skip all the way to "My Question/s" as well.)
So I've been searching for an answer, and every page I visit seems to give me a different one.
I'm trying to figure out if I need a product key, for every VM I deploy.
I am a small start up company owner, and am currently the only employee.
I purchased a server from dell, to run my website, as well as an email server, because I found it more cost effective to do so.
Buying and running a server, rather than renting a web server and paying for email services, pays itself off within 2-3 years.
I would be doing a lot of SMTP relays, as well as have many email accounts, for doing stuff like email verification, and order and shipping notices, which is bloody expensive for a start up company.
Why I am here
There are a lot of people on different forums advising to put the email server, and the web server on different machines, so this is where my question comes in.
Some people are saying, you can have 2 free virtual machines with 2019 Essentials.
There are also people saying you are only allowed 1 free VM.
And then there are other people saying you need a product key for each VM.
What I want to do
I would like to deploy 2 virtual machines, 1 for email, 1 for the web server, and the physical machine would just be for managing Hyper-V, and acting as a DNS server or some sorts. I only have 1 static IP address at the moment, so I would be forwarding mail traffic and web traffic to the VM's IP(not sure how to do this properly yet, so correct me if I'm wrong that a DNS server is the correct way to do that.)
My Question/s
Before you say this is a duplicate post, there are too many of them with different answers, so I'm hoping that someone can give me the real answer.
Question 1
So my question is, would I need to purchase 3 product keys for Essentials 2019, to run my physical machine, the VM for the email server, and the VM for the web server?
I would be the only user for all 3 of them.
Question 1 A
And if I would have to purchase 3 product keys, what is the best way to setup an email server and web server on the same physical machine?
Because I cannot afford to purchase 3 keys, but I really want to do my best to not compromise security(I can barely afford the 1).
Question 1 B
And then if you are allowed to have 1 free VM, would it be better to run the email server on the VM, or the web server?
Other Question - (Not required, I am most likely going to ask another question, either here or on stack exchange.)
As I mentioned above, if I do go with the 2 VMs, using 1 static IP, with public DNS records pointing to that static IP, is the correct way of routing mail traffic and web traffic to the VMs with a DNS server? Or what is the correct way of doing that? Brief answer would be all I need.
And would doing this cause any extra latency, lets say I created an online game, is this going to affect the response time?
end statement
Thank you, and I really appreciate the time you took to read this, and respond with any help you can provide me.
Hope you are having a good day.