No matter what day or week it is, we’ll always get a question about “how else can we use our license” with a very specific example. The short answer is – you must always use licenses as they are intended for use, otherwise you will be out of compliance, and penalties can be steep! We understand that there are a lot of gray areas in your licensing agreement, but this usage is usually not one of them.
One example of this is the Microsoft Developer Network (MSDN), one of several subscription-based offerings from Microsoft. It gives a licensed user access to many tools, to support forums, to trial version software, and many more features. However, the applications supported by the software available under the MSDN subscription can only be used in a development environment. Once these applications are deployed in production, the proper licensing is required. For example, SQL Server can be downloaded by an MSDN licensee. Once the application is to be deployed in production, SQL Server licensing for the production environment must be purchased. However, one of the benefits of MSDN is that licenses do not have to be purchased for proof-of-concept initiatives.
Be sure that you are properly licensed at all times, non-compliance is a big issue and most organizations don’t even realize they are doing it!