How Does SQL Server Licensing Work?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Note that a minimum of 4 core licences are needed. So $7,000. Still cheaper.
We're going through this at the moment for a Dynamics upgrade (NAV 2015). Per core is definitely much cheaper. However, it's important to note that this will only cover you for SQL Server on one server. That's fine if you will only ever use it for Dynamics. But it's common to find other applications needing (or can use) SQL Server, for example Sharepoint can. If you want other applications to use SQL Server, it's likely to be cheaper to go with a CAL licence, as the additional cost of an extra server licence is peanuts. To further complicate matters, your other applications may only need SQL Server Express. So per core is cheaper.
We currently run a Engineering Document Management systems that comes with it's own proprietary database. It supports SQL Server, and we may want to switch to SQL Server in the future for performance reasons. But we may not.
I basically need to look into my crystal ball and work out the probability that we may need SQL Server to run on another server in the next few years. If the answer is yes, I'll go CAL. If the answer is no, I'll go Core. I hate these kinds of decisions.
If you're interested, I'll probably go Core.
What does yours support other than SQL Server? For the licensing cost of SQL Server you can do an awful lot to speed up another product.
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Oracle.
It's not just licencing costs to consider though. It's things like database administration costs.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
Oracle.
It's not just licencing costs to consider though. It's things like database administration costs.
PostgreSQL is a drop in Oracle replacement. Anywhere that Oracle works, PostgreSQL should work.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
PostgreSQL
Sure, but "works" and "supported" are not the same thing.
This is what I've often wondered.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
PostgreSQL
Sure, but "works" and "supported" are not the same thing.
Sucks if you have vendors that will only support expensive back ends. PostgreSQL is used by everyone today. From Wall St. To Heroku.
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@Dashrender said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
PostgreSQL
Sure, but "works" and "supported" are not the same thing.
This is what I've often wondered.
PostgreSQL is heavily supported. But this is an app by app question. Does your specific app vendor provide your database support?
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@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Does your specific app vendor provide your database support?
No.
If not, why the concern? PostgreSQL is just as supported as any other enterprise database offering.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Does your specific app vendor provide your database support?
No.
If not, why the concern? PostgreSQL is just as supported as any other enterprise database offering.
Not with Dynamics thought, as far as I know you can only use it with MS SQL (full version, not lite).
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Just a quick update on pricing, here is what I got from my vendor for a current quote:
SQL Server 2014 Core License: $3,322 x 2 = $6,644
or
SQL Server 2014 Standard: $823 + SQL Server 2014 User CAL: $192 x 25 = $4,800 = $5,623
They could honestly get away with only a 2 core License for their current usage, but they decided to go with 4 core license to handle growth.
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If you go core based licensing, you probably have to go four cores any how.
i.e. if you're a VM, MS says you have to license a minimum of 4 cores.
If you're on bare metal you have to license everything in the box - I suppose you could purpose build a 2 core box and then get away with only buying two cores, but that seems wasteful.
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So this SQL 2008 R2, never used copy that I have ready to go...It shows to be 5 CAL's, which is the exact number of Dynamics users I have. So is this acceptable to use or do I need to count our other 45 users who indirectly access SQL by spreadsheet SQL Queries? Just making sure who is counted as a CAL.
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If a user touches SQL directly or indirectly (though an application) you need a license for them.
You'll need licensing to cover those 45 users.
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@Dashrender said:
If a user touches SQL directly or indirectly (though an application) you need a license for them.
You'll need licensing to cover those 45 users.
Got it...I'll check on adding 45 to this one...thanks!
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@garak0410 said:
So this SQL 2008 R2, never used copy that I have ready to go...It shows to be 5 CAL's, which is the exact number of Dynamics users I have. So is this acceptable to use or do I need to count our other 45 users who indirectly access SQL by spreadsheet SQL Queries? Just making sure who is counted as a CAL.
Yep you will, only if those Spreedsheets were completely stand-alone and have the data exported by one of the 5 users you could get away with it.
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@garak0410 said:
@Dashrender said:
If a user touches SQL directly or indirectly (though an application) you need a license for them.
You'll need licensing to cover those 45 users.
Got it...I'll check on adding 45 to this one...thanks!
You will have to buy SQL 2014 CALS to my understanding. So the price should be similar to what I listed above.
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@JaredBusch said:
@garak0410 said:
@Dashrender said:
If a user touches SQL directly or indirectly (though an application) you need a license for them.
You'll need licensing to cover those 45 users.
Got it...I'll check on adding 45 to this one...thanks!
You will have to buy SQL 2014 CALS to my understanding. So the price should be similar to what I listed above.
Which means that Core licensing would save you a bundle!
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Carnival-Boy said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Does your specific app vendor provide your database support?
No.
If not, why the concern? PostgreSQL is just as supported as any other enterprise database offering.
The app vendor doesn't support the database, but they don't support the app if it is used with an unsupported database, if you follow me?
Anyway, I'm an SQL Server boy now and that isn't going to change - I've invested time and money into getting proficient so switching for the sake of saving on licencing is false economy. I haven't used Oracle for a few years now. Licencing cost is only one part of the total cost of ownership.
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@Carnival-Boy said:
The app vendor doesn't support the database, but they don't support the app if it is used with an unsupported database, if you follow me?
I'm with ya. Wasn't sure if they did or not. Often they only care that there is a database interface. Since the database is external and elsewhere, they never see the database and all that matters is that, in this case, an Oracle interface is presented. All of their documentation and work would be done as if it were Oracle and unless they were told otherwise or given access to poke around on the database server they would have no way to know that it was not Oracle being used.
It is very surprising that they would take the time to support Oracle and not PostgreSQL. Normally you'd expect PostgreSQL to get precedence today and Oracle to be an afterthought.
