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Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses
* * Beatles-Beatles is one of many to let us know that Microsoft has changed how they handle licensing for Windows Server and related products with regards to virtual machine environments. The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors rather than the number of physical processors in the computer.
No (you fanatical moron) this is to prevent people from virtualizing a server and running 18 copies of Windows on it while paying for one.
Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though.
Just a side note that although you can set SQL Server to run on only one processor, if the machine has two processors you are required to buy two processor licenses. At least under the old system. I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not. I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors, but I certainly wouldn't pay for two licenses unless I was running it on both processors.
I somehow doubt this licensing applies to "virtual" processors in a standard server (not a virtual machine), at least that was the stance they had taken previously.
This is true, but so is the opposite situation (which is probably more likely a situation).
If you have a four CPU server running 6 virtual OS's, if you only want SQL Server on one of those OS's you only need one copy, where as before if you wanted it on 1 you had to buy four copies.
So if *someone* were to *accidentally* release a virus that doubled the number of virtual processors (I don't know how that's done, I'm assuming it's in software)
A "virtual processor" is created inside a copy of vmware, virtual pc, or other PC emulation[1] software. Good luck fitting a copy of a PC emulator into a worm's payload.
[1] Pedants: Virtualization involves emulating most of a PC, even if it does use JIT recompilation from x86 to x86. This is necessary in part because of design flaws in some kernel-mode instructions in x86.
Also check out his great series on running old games under Virtual PC.
/. is irrelevant.
More to the point you had to buy a 4 cpu licence for that single virtual server even though most virtual servers only virtualize a single processor and so you were paying the 4 cpu price for a 1cpu equivalent server.
To address the comment about dual core processors I am pretty darn sure I read in the past that Microsoft had adopted a policy of treating a single dual core processor as 1 cpu and not 2.
"You can now flame me, I am full of love,"
1) This change affects only virtual processors, not physical ones. If your running VMWare or MS Virtual Server than this is for you. Otherwise move along.
2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's
3) Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition is now licenced for 4 instances of itself per Machine. So you could run 4 Windows 2K3 Servers VM's on one server and MS says "go for it"
The Details from the Horse at MS
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
Ok, so you've got a pizza in six slices. And you have five friends. Pizza for everyone.
Ok, so you've got Windows. And you have five friends. Windows for everyone?
What if you have 100 friends? 100th of a pizza is not very tasty. But each copy of Windows is identical to the first.
Are you saying that it should be 1 Product Key for one computer, regardless of the number of CPUs (virtual or otherwise)? And if so, under that scheme, why wouldn't everyone who needed lots of Windows servers just build a giant monolith with 128 CPUs and pay the thousand bucks once instead of 128 times?
I don't like weird licensing schemes either, but the other side of the fence has people on it too.
RTFA? It will reduce costs for most companies.
RTFA.
Instead of before, when their software running in VM's had to use a license for your physical processors (and these could be many), they can now use another (cheaper) license for the virtual processor. For people using their software in VM's this should usually be a good thing, although there are exceptions given.
Here's a quote: (bolding mine since it's vital; it's not like you could just skip licensing before, you had to go for a more expensive model of licensing for all your processors... now you only need for the VM "processor")
One change will let users who buy SQL Server, BizTalk Server and other Microsoft server software under a per-processor model license the products according to the number of virtualized processors they actually use, instead of the number of physical processors in their boxes.
And here's the case when it'll end up more expensive:
But there are cases where companies could wind up paying more money under the new model, Park said. For example, if a user runs six virtual instances of a product such as BizTalk Server on a four-processor box, it would have to pay for six BizTalk licenses
And what's this about terminal servers? A terminal server isn't even a VM.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
I RTFA, and here's my take on it:
If I have a 4 way box running 3 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 3 single CPU licenses (before I owed them for one 4 way license, more expensive).
If I have a 4 way box running 6 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 6 single CPU licenses (a 4 way license is cheaper than 6 singles)
According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.
So yeah, MS is screwing us. They're just either misinformed or hoping the readers are.
I see their claim, but most of my experience (corporate and not) is that you use VM's to allow you to run _many_ instances of operating systems on a single machine. Unless I misunderstood the article and this isn't also about OS's then I have great example (from work) that would not be a winning situation. We run several instances (~20) of Windows XP on a VM server for developers to use. Would this now require 20 XP licenses plus host OS instead of 1 XP license and the host OS license?
Every processor virtual or otherwise needs to be licensed for each product. So a 2 processor box with 6 virtual processors instances is 8 processors (the windows that booted the virtual processors) and the virtual processors.
This high number of virtual processors is likely to come into fashion in an ASP situation. If you look at vmware enterprise-like solutions where you can have standby virtual processors on other machines and the like.
Seems like a money grab to me that will just alienate folk, just like their user/connection + terminal service licensing destroyed the terminal services. Making it more expensive to license a product in TSE and it did a regular desktop.
members are seeing something, your seeing an ad
0.3% of GDP on Windows licences! Are you having a proverbial "laugh"?
UK GDP - source Google - $ 1,782,000,000,000
0.3% of UK GDP = $5,346,000,000 or $5.4bn
I'm sure the UK spends a lot on Windows. But bear in mind that Microsoft's total annual revenues are only about $40bn, of which roughly half is client (Windows XP, etc.) and server (Windows 2003 Server). (In fact this over-states total Windows licenses, as there is also SQL Server, etc. in there.) But even on a best case, you're saying that the UK buys more than a quarter of all Microsoft Windows licenses. In fact, what you're really doing is making up sprurious statistics to get some temporary kudos.
Next item of absurdity: "the United Kingdom spends 0.3% of GDP on it's transport infrastructure". Really? Source please. Of course there is no source, because this is a ridiculous made up number. Lets go to the UK Office of National Statistics: oh! it turns out that the UK government (excluding what is spent by private industry) spends, da da, £20bn on transport infrastructure. (Which, at today's exchange rate is about $35bn, or around 2% of GDP.)
Once more for Mr. Leap-to-conclusion mat:
- This is a pay for what you use deal under virtualization, e.g. customers now buy fewer licenses in most scenarios
- Microsoft supports 1 license per physical CPU. The story is still somewhat inconsistent with Oracle, IBM, etc (try getting a straight answer from Oracle)
Most IBM software is priced per CPU. And everything after that is in the customer's favor. If it's a dual core CPU you pay for one CPU, not two (unlike, say, Oracle). If you use virtualization software (like z/VM, LPARs, Virtual PC, or VMware) you only pay for the number of CPUs that the software actually executes on. If that means you run 300 instances of DB2 for Linux on a single Linux mainframe CPU running z/VM, you pay for one CPU, not 300. Unlike Microsoft. If you want to switch from DB2 for Windows to DB2 for Linux (on the mainframe or anywhere else), fine -- the processor licenses are cross-platform. Don't pay again. The main reason corporate customers run virtual machine technology is so they can consolidate the ridiculous numbers of test and development servers which cost a fortune. Under IBM's pricing policy that's encouraged, and they can get their costs under control. Under Microsoft's new policy it'll cost those businesses more if they use virtualization to any significant degree.
In the mainframe world they have several ways of costing:
Per LPAR (virtual machine) capacity
Per CPU seconds used (rationalised for costing)
Per access - With some programs you pay for the number of times the program is run.
We recently had to negotiate with CA because we upgraded a mainframe (nearly doubled its capacity) and CA argued that we owed them more due to the LPAR having greater capacity.
This is akin to Windows Server Edition costing more because you are running it on a 3.4Ghz machine rather than a 3.0Ghz machine.
After dealing with mainframes for four years I have come to this concolusion when it comes to money: Companies will charge every cent they can, in every way they can up to the point of the customer not using their product.
The ending to the story above is quite nice. One of our managers nicely told CA that since we have not increased our usage of their product they can either submit a better offer than a $300,000 increase (we're halfway through a contract btw) or we will migrate to another product. We are talking about CA AllFusion Endevor here. There are alternatives. CA knows it. We know it. A better deal was done. (No, we are not privy to the details, only that it was more than what we are currently paying, far less than what they demanded, and we are continuing to use CA Endevor. I think someone tipped them off that we could be expanding to use more CA products in the future and that alienating us could cost them a lot of money).
http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=259
However: For what we pay for the mainframe to run is nothing compared to what it costs to do the same transactions on Midrange. Ever looked up the price of using webMethods?
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Higher prices 'benefit' consumers.
Actually, this will lower prices for anyone it affects. Currently, if you have a four processor box running (e.g.) VMWare, and partition it into four virtual machines, one of which is running SQL Server, you need a four-processor SQL Server licence. Under the change in terms, you'll only need a single-processor licence.
Congrats on getting your "+5, Bashes MS" though.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
You know... I'm no Microsoft-guru either (but I do know how to spell it correctly), but you know... There are cases where a network consists of more than your three networked Linux-machines. You know, big corporate networks which require central management.
I'm not saying it can't be done otherwise, and if you do happen to know other viable means, feel free to tell me, but for jobs like this Active Directory actually kicks ass. A simple update on your group policies and it's implemented network wide. Again, I'm not saying it can't be done in any otherway, but for tasks like this AFAIK OpenLDAP simply doesn't cut it.
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.