Tag: Microsoft licensing

Microsoft online services – licensing tips
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Tip, Microsoft: News You Can UseLeave a Comment on Microsoft online services – licensing tips

Microsoft online services, which are growing in popularity, are a subscription-based model and are very specific in its use. Licensing is much simpler to decipher, especially due to the lack of hardware associated with the service. Just like any other web-based service, you can buy one or multiple licenses, or a company-wide unlimited usage plan. For certain products, such as Forefront Protection for Exchange, you can purchase it in either a per device or per user subscription, dependent on your […]

Licensing desktop operating systems
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Tip, Microsoft: News You Can UseLeave a Comment on Licensing desktop operating systems

With Microsoft desktop operating systems (OS) are surprisingly simple when it comes to licensing. For each physical or virtual client that uses that operating system you can install one copy per license. This includes thin clients also. The only exception to this rule is if you have a volume licensing program – the desktop OS license is an upgrade. Typically, the licenses that come with your PCs when you purchase them are considered base licenses; therefore, you should only have […]

Microsoft changes are a-coming!
Scott D. RosenbergLicensing Change Alert, Microsoft Licensing Compliance, Microsoft: News You Can UseLeave a Comment on Microsoft changes are a-coming!

We have addressed how the per-device licensing model that Microsoft currently utilizes is slowing the adoption of virtualization, making it too expensive. But… guess what? Later this year, Microsoft is finally going to make some changes! Some of the complaints from the industry have been about the required purchase of SA in order to access virtual desktop tools, and that Virtual Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD), which is required, is too expensive. While Microsoft is well aware of these issues that […]

Knowing your Peak Capacity
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Compliance, Microsoft Licensing Tip, VirtualizationLeave a Comment on Knowing your Peak Capacity

One important rule in server licensing (especially in the Microsoft environment) is understanding your peak capacity. Very simply, you must be licensed for the maximum usage of your server – the maximum number of running instances. Even if you, for example, only ever need one instance, but there is a possibility at some point there will be two instances run on that server at the same time – it needs to be licensed for two. The number of instances that […]

Virtualization Licensing Tip: Parallels’ Virtuozzo
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Compliance, Microsoft Licensing Tip, VirtualizationLeave a Comment on Virtualization Licensing Tip: Parallels’ Virtuozzo

When using Parallels’ Virtuozzo on a single physical server, silos are created (running instances  that act as the host operating system). Because of this, Virtuozzo is unable to run more than one edition of Windows Server on the physical server. With some products, Microsoft will allow you to run different editions of Server 2008 on different Operating System Environments (OSEs), but in the case of Virtuozzo, you (obviously) cannot take advantage of this. If you are running all instances through […]

Client Access Licenses (CALs) and External Connectors
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Compliance, Microsoft Licensing Tip, VirtualizationLeave a Comment on Client Access Licenses (CALs) and External Connectors

With most Microsoft servers in a virtualized environment, there are two types of licenses that you can, and in some cases must, acquire – Client Access Licenses (CAL) and External Connectors (EC). The requirements for both are the same – one is required for each device that accesses an instance of server software. This can be on either a physical or virtual server. For example, if you have an employee who needs access to the physical server on some occasions […]

Virtualization Licensing Tip: VMware’s ESX
Scott D. RosenbergMicrosoft Licensing Compliance, Microsoft Licensing Tip, VirtualizationLeave a Comment on Virtualization Licensing Tip: VMware’s ESX

If you have implemented VMware’s ESX on your server as the core virtualization technology, a license is required for every instance running in the virtual environment. If you have only assigned one license to Windows Server 2008 Standard while using ESX, you may only run one instance of the software at a time. Windows Server 2008 cannot be deployed as the operating system in the physical environment since ESX takes its place. If you have the Enterprise version – you […]

In Archive