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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.
Well, at least they show some inovation on their side. Even though it comes from from greed department:)
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So if you're only running one instance of Windows (but sharing processors among threads) you're still only need one license. It's when you try to run 2 distinct copies of windows simultaneously on the same PC that you have to pay twice.
Although this is loosely equivalent to having to pay for your TV twice if you use it once for primary viewing and again for picture in picture...
Why not just use free alternatives?
"This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?"
Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes....
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As you said, under the old system, you were charged for each processor. Thus, a server with two physical processors was charged for two processor licenses for SQL Server even though you were only running it on one. The situation now lets you simply purchase a single license for each CPU you are _actually running it on_. Despite everyone shouting greed, this is a rare occasion of MS doing what the customers (Corp Customers) have been asking for for a long time.
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Don't know much about it, but how would they handle the situation where I'd limit say Windows to VCPU 1 and Office to VCPU 2.
Seems like I should only have to pay the single VCPU price, but I imagine that won't be the case will it...
I love this quote from the article: Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm>
"I filter at +6, and have yet to miss out on an important comment." (#822545)
Yes, MS has been covering this for years, by requiring you to have a CAL (Client Access License) to be able to connect to a Terminal Server, or well, any of their servers really.
If you've got SharePoint, MS SQL, Exchange and Terminal Server all running on the same server and you use that server for file and print services, guess what you need 5 CALs for each and every client.
1 client licenes for Exchange
1 client license for MS SQL
1 SharePoint client license (SharePoint btw, requires MS SQL)
1 client license for Terminal Services
1 for file and printing
They're just raping their customers even more now. Per processor or per virutual processor licensing scheme are total bullshit. I bet within the next 10-20 years we'll see this come up in the courts.
Why does one copy of Windows cost more if you have more CPUs, since it's still only one copy of Windows? That's like buying a whole pizza where the price is based on the number of slices it's cut into. A pizza cut into 6 slices would cost $6, but the same pizza cut into 10 slices would cost $10.
It really should be 1 CD & 1 Product Key = 1 price.
What's the difference between running two instances of Application X on one CPU, and running one instance of Application X on each of two CPUs?
It boils down to the question "what is virtual, anyway?". If I run a process under an emulator, versus running it on the native operating system, there's no difference as far as the application is concerned. Only its execution environment has changed. So presumably I should require two licenses of the operating system, because I am running two instances of it.
It makes sense to count not CPUs but the number of concurrent instances of an application, irrespective where they run. For applications which are licensed according to some scale, of course. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with linux and OSS!
If you are running multiple installations under VMWare Workstation, where you are not running all instances at the same time, you may very well likely have installed more than N instances of an OS under an N processor box.
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Au contraire - (That's French for Kind of - not really)
Each copy of XP Pro comes with a CAL for Terminal services - but only if your server for Terminal Services is running Server 2000.
Those CAL's are not valid if your TS box is running Server 2003 (once known as XP Server)
You either believe in rational thought or you don't
It's based on the perceived value of the purchase. Let's say a company needs to do a lot of SQL stuff. They could just set up a bunch of single or dual processor boxes, pay X to license separete instances of SQL for each, for a total of X*Bunch. Or, they could buy a big bad killer 16-way machine and outperform the lot of them (er, depending on what you're doing), and thus not need to buy so much of the server software. Lost revenue for the publisher... although, depending on the product, it's exactly that hyper-serious big-dollar enterprise corporate user that they spent the majority of the R&D fine tuning for. Sure, the average department throws up a SQL server to do some simple storage/queries... but by the time someone's putting a $50,000 machine to work in what's obviously a seriously mission critical role for a very large operation, well, it can't screw up. And more to the point, MS is on the hook for a certain amount of support under such circumstances (those very large purchases rarely happen without direct MS sales/tech involvement before, during, and after the transaction). Your average cube-jockey support person is not equipped to deal with the network, the storage, the business environment, or the pressure that usually goes hand in hand with the use of, say, a 16-processor enterprise db box (and the cluster it's probably in). That is an example of why it costs more money.
And you know what? Microsoft is not stupid. If Oracle or DB2 wasn't priced the same way, they wouldn't do it. But there's a reason that super-duper heavy duty products/implementations are expensive - it's not just "because they can."
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
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
True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.
In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.
So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...
Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.
If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...
You're clueless. For people running VMware and other virtualizations with certain server apps, this will make MS's products less expensive to license. RTFA. "Anti-customer?" Well, since you've got the whole point of this move of their's exactly, precisely backwards, it makes sense you'd think that, I guess. Being exactly, completely wrong probably has you seeing much of the world incorrectly. MS isn't committing suicide with this, they're being smart, doing their customers right, making it easier for the consulting army to make good (and cheaper) recommendations. Read before you spout off next time.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
If they listened to their customers they would create 1 flavor of windows (non of this pro/server/enterprise crap). That 1 flavor would come with all the things you would need to make a server/desktop/etc and make that an installation question like most Linux distros do. Charge one flat fee for Windows(like $59) regardless of what you plan to use it for or how many processors you have. Make licensing simple and make it cheap and then people wouldn't have a need to pirate anything. By default you do not get any support beyond regular updates. If the customer needs extra support then charge them extra for it. Nice and simple. I would even buy a copy then.
Whatever happened to just buting a copy of the OS and it ran. I mean really like they need to be bastards and charge for instances of a software running. I mean I can install and run this game three times, but I only paid once. They don't seem to have a problem with that. It seems that your not buying a product anymore. Pretty soon they will charge per service per virtual server. That'll be sweet I bet. I just want to buy the damn cd and do whatever I want with what I friggin paid for.
w00t
Umm... it's not very smart to run SQL Server in a virtual machine environment. RDBMS are far to memory and I/O intensive for such an application. It would be much faster (and far cheaper from a licensing standpoint) to run multiple segregated instances of SQL Server on the same host OS.
Just because you can do something with VMware, doesn't mean you should...