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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.
Great, I guess this means I'll continue to depend upon my own virtual licensing scheme, based on the amount of warez I can download.
Either is that greed talking or they feel that people cheat with terminal servers to avoid buying OS licenses.
Signature Pro version 1.13.2-3 release 83.5 beta3try7 after-breakfast edition
They DID find a way to get even more money from their customers. And when we thought they were over, they finally did something innovative.
Is this supposed to be cheaper? Unless people were running one virtual machine per dual-processor box, they will now be paying more. Isn't the purpose of virtualization to run multiple servers on one box, so one user can't access the other? Am I very confused?
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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.
I guess the answer for this is to start paying for virtual licenses with virtual money.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?
FLR
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.
I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well. -Henry David Thoreau
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,"
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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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!
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.
I'll just pay them with virtual money
We should have been
So much more by now
Too dead inside
To even know the guilt
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.
is come up with a vitual host that has no processors
"In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act." - George Orwell
* the gatesean technical term for krapware
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.
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.)
A beggar found shelter in a tavern and sat by a fireplace where a hunk of meat was roasting on a spit. Before eating his meager dinner, consisting of a piece of dry bread, he held it out toward the meat to catch some of the flavour. The tavern keeper saw him and demanded payment, causing the poor fellow considerable distress, since he had no money. A wise man who was eating at a nearby table saw the commotion and asked the keeper what the problem was. "This thief is stealing the flavour of my meat!" the keeper said. "If he wants it, he better pay for it or git out." "That's all right," said the wise man. He pulled out a coin, threw it down on the fireplace, picked it back up and replaced it in his pocket. "For the flavour of your meat, I have now paid you with the chime of my coin."
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.
I only mow my lawn about every two weeks. My neighbor across the street mows his every week. Shouldn't he have to pay twice as much for a mower as I do?
If software companies are allowed to control "their property" in this way, I don't see why sellers of physical products won't eventually do the same thing. Instead of buying a product and owning it, you'll merely be buying a license to use it for a certain amount of time. Then the license will expire and you'll either have to renew it or throw the product away. Tell me how this is different from what software companies are already doing?