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.

Comments

Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme

[psyon1]

Why not just use free alternatives?

Re:Great!

[isotope23]

"This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?"

Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes....

Re:How will this work for Windows?

[BrynM]

I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not.

Exactly. Licensing gets easier under the new system, which most people postig seem to have missed (RTFA people).

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.

Limiting an app to one processor?

[phallstrom]

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...

Good for them

[nacs]

This kind of thing only benefits opensource so I approve. The more ridiculous their licensing gets, the more businesses will look to open source solutions ( Linux + Xen or Linux + UML, etc).

I love this quote from the article:

The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.

Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm>

Re:Good for them

[StikyPad]

Except you're thinking of it bass ackwards..

Bob Armstrong, managing director of IT at Delaware North Cos. in Buffalo, N.Y., said he hasn't even evaluated running SQL Server in a virtual environment because of the license fees that would be required. Armstrong noted that with a virtualized quad-processor system, Delaware North would have to pay for four instances of the databases under Microsoft's previous policy, even if it used only two processors for SQL Server. "We were waiting for the change," he said.

They're not talking about virtual processors, they're talking about the number of actual processors used to run the virtual OS.

Re:Good for them

[Total_Wimp]

Not to be rude by calling you bass ackwards or anything, but...

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.

The article was plenty weird in how they gave their examples. Until I get a more clear explenation I'm just gonna assume that whatever will put more money in Bill's pocket is most accurate.

TW

Re:How is that cheating?

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

1 Copy != 1 Price ?

[eikonos]

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.

Re:How is that cheating?

[WinPimp2K]

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)

Re:Explain this to me.

[ScentCone]

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."

Re:For those that didn't read the article.

[pla]

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...