Microsoft Licensing Primer
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
No SA is required for this per our MS rep. Though all we do spin them up with no network connection and the shut them right back down. Once per quarter.
You might want to check on that.
It's only allowed once every 90 days WITH SA.
That's not what our EA Rep says. We have checked on it many times.
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I believe you are referring to cold/standby licensed backup servers. Which is a right under SA's standby server rights but that is highly different then making sure a live backup boots and then turning it back off, there is no 90 day restriction either, if you have SA you can also use Standby servers.
Also if you have Azure for your DR site then you don't need anything. All windows base licensing is covered.
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@Jason said:
I believe you are referring to cold/standby licensed backup servers. Which is a right under SA's standby server rights but that is highly different then making sure a live backup boots and then turning it back off, there is no 90 day restriction either, if you have SA you can also use Standby servers.
Also if you have Azure for your DR site then you don't need anything. All windows base licensing is covered.
What do you mean a "live backup" ... if you boot a copy of server up for 1 second you need another license for it. MS has no disaster recivery rights.
With SA, you can boot it once every 90 days.
@scottalanmiller I am sure will chime in here to support this...
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A bit offtop:
Isn`t MS is the only company who has certification program for its licensing? -
@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
I believe you are referring to cold/standby licensed backup servers. Which is a right under SA's standby server rights but that is highly different then making sure a live backup boots and then turning it back off, there is no 90 day restriction either, if you have SA you can also use Standby servers.
Also if you have Azure for your DR site then you don't need anything. All windows base licensing is covered.
What do you mean a "live backup" ... if you boot a copy of server up for 1 second you need another license for it. MS has no disaster recivery rights.
With SA, you can boot it once every 90 days.
@scottalanmiller I am sure will chime in here to support this...
That's not true. SA is what gives you disaster recovery rights and you can keep this live backup DR running as a cold site as long as it's not being actively being used for production.
We're on Enterpise so we don't need SA to test backups, but you do need SA for Diaster recovery on other hardware and no you do not need a second windows license for a replicated DR copy.
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@Jason said:
That's not true. SA is what gives you disaster recovery rights and you can keep this live backup DR running as a cold site as long as it's not being actively being used for production.
That is what the whole latest discussion was about. That the usage rights for SA state:
The backup Instance can run only during the following exception periods:
• For brief periods of disaster recovery testing within one week every 90 days;
• During a disaster, while the production Server being recovered is down; and
• Around the time of a disaster, for a brief period, to assist in the transfer between the primary production server and the disaster recovery Server. -
@Dashrender said:
man, you guys have completely left out Software Assurance, which can be a HUGE savings here.
One step at a time. Microsoft Licensing is a beast, that even they themselves don't understand.
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@BRRABill said:
@Jason said:
That's not true. SA is what gives you disaster recovery rights and you can keep this live backup DR running as a cold site as long as it's not being actively being used for production.
That is what the whole latest discussion was about. That the usage rights for SA state:
The backup Instance can run only during the following exception periods:
• For brief periods of disaster recovery testing within one week every 90 days;
• During a disaster, while the production Server being recovered is down; and
• Around the time of a disaster, for a brief period, to assist in the transfer between the primary production server and the disaster recovery Server.The second line is the part that Jason had mentioned.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The second line is the part that Jason had mentioned.
When @Jason said "SA is what gives you disaster recovery rights and you can keep this live backup DR running as a cold site as long as it's not being actively being used for production"
I thought he meant the server was constantly running. Not just being booted up once every 90 days.
And I still think you need SA for this. I do not believe it is allowed without SA.
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@BRRABill said:
And I still think you need SA for this. I do not believe it is allowed without SA.
On not normally licensed hardware yes.
To boot up on the same hardware to test when you have enterprise no.
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This requirement for SA has really foxed me. How do people without SA perform Disaster Recovery testing? It's almost impossible isn't it? But if it's impossible, how to companies get away without have any DR testing?
And you don't just need SA on your Windows licence do you? You need SA on all your applications, SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint etc etc
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Am I right in thinking a Windows licence is effectively assigned to a physical host rather than to individual VMs running on that host?
So if I had a DR/Lab host, used purely for testing, and purchased a single Windows Server Standard licence, could I run various different VMs on the box provided I never had more than two VMs running at the same time? So I could test a DC and Exchange, then shutdown Exchange and restore Sharepoint and test that? Is that how it works? (I appreciate I would need SA or separate licences for the applications eg Exchange and Sharepoint)
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@Carnival-Boy said:
This requirement for SA has really foxed me. How do people without SA perform Disaster Recovery testing? It's almost impossible isn't it? But if it's impossible, how to companies get away without have any DR testing?
They buy multiple licenses.
It's been my understanding that larger shops typically don't run into this because they either have Datacenter Edition, or just buy enough licenses to cover it. It has also been brought to my attention you could do it the old fashioned way. Actually perform a test disaster recovery.
I assume a lot of places just look the other way, because it makes no sense to follow the licensing. Kind of like doing 56 in a 55.
But to each their own...
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@Carnival-Boy said:
This requirement for SA has really foxed me. How do people without SA perform Disaster Recovery testing? It's almost impossible isn't it? But if it's impossible, how to companies get away without have any DR testing?
It's not that SA is required, it's just generally the more cost effective approach. If you have datacenter licensing on every piece of hardware, for example, you would not need SA for this at all. SA lets you do that stuff without having so many Windows licenses. It's just one of the options.
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@BRRABill said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
This requirement for SA has really foxed me. How do people without SA perform Disaster Recovery testing? It's almost impossible isn't it? But if it's impossible, how to companies get away without have any DR testing?
They buy multiple licenses.
It's been my understanding that larger shops typically don't run into this because they either have Datacenter Edition, or just buy enough licenses to cover it. It has also been brought to my attention you could do it the old fashioned way. Actually perform a test disaster recovery.
Larger shops definitely use DataCenter editions and often do blanket licenses for their workloads so that they don't have to track this so closely. Enterprise licenses build in a lot of fudge factor to make Windows more attractive.
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See ... I am learning!
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This whole conversation makes me so happy I deal with Linux.
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@johnhooks said:
This whole conversation makes me so happy I deal with Linux.
No kidding. Someone should do a study as to how much cost and time is in the licensing overhead for Windows. It would be very interesting.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@johnhooks said:
This whole conversation makes me so happy I deal with Linux.
No kidding. Someone should do a study as to how much cost and time is in the licensing overhead for Windows. It would be very interesting.
Yeah, but who would pay for it?
