Licensing from DaaS
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Hi Team
Question, we're thinking of implementing a DaaS environment for a specific client.
My query comes around licensing. I've been told a mixed back surrounding windows licensing for the DaaS environment.Do we need to license the Virtual desktops? Of course we'd have bought Windows Desktops with pre-installed Windows so would that license cover any virtual environment or would we need to purchase additional windows user licenses???
Thanks in advance
J -
that does not cover the VDI situation. You would need to either 1) purchase Software assurance for every device that will access the DaaS server (and you can only do that for Windows machines, i.e. if you try to use an iPad to connect to the DaaS, you need a different kind of license) or 2) you purchase VDI licenses for each user.
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Both Software Assurance (SA) and VDI are subscription products from MS that give licensing rights for this.
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As Dash points out, you always need something more than Windows desktops. You need to license VDI and license the backend infrastructure. And DaaS is effectively impossible to license as a service provider unless you don't use Windows desktop OSes at all (that's how Amazon pulls it off.)
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@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
And DaaS is effectively impossible to license as a service provider unless you don't use Windows desktop OSes at all (that's how Amazon pulls it off.)
Can you explain this more?
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@aaronstuder said in Licensing from DaaS:
@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
And DaaS is effectively impossible to license as a service provider unless you don't use Windows desktop OSes at all (that's how Amazon pulls it off.)
Can you explain this more?
Windows desktops cannot be leased. If you as a service provider make a VDI system your employees can use them but customers cannot. You can't lease desktop licenses.
Amazon tackles this by using Server 2012 R2 and RDS to get around the VDI license problem.
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@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
@aaronstuder said in Licensing from DaaS:
@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
And DaaS is effectively impossible to license as a service provider unless you don't use Windows desktop OSes at all (that's how Amazon pulls it off.)
Can you explain this more?
Windows desktops cannot be leased. If you as a service provider make a VDI system your employees can use them but customers cannot. You can't lease desktop licenses.
Amazon tackles this by using Server 2012 R2 and RDS to get around the VDI license problem.
They could do the same thing with DataCenter licenses then.... just ugly though.
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@Dashrender said in Licensing from DaaS:
@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
@aaronstuder said in Licensing from DaaS:
@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
And DaaS is effectively impossible to license as a service provider unless you don't use Windows desktop OSes at all (that's how Amazon pulls it off.)
Can you explain this more?
Windows desktops cannot be leased. If you as a service provider make a VDI system your employees can use them but customers cannot. You can't lease desktop licenses.
Amazon tackles this by using Server 2012 R2 and RDS to get around the VDI license problem.
They could do the same thing with DataCenter licenses then.... just ugly though.
No. No normal license can be leased. Only service provider licenses hve that option.
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Thanks guys.
So to confirm, i need to purchase VDI licenses for each user who needs to use the DaaS environment?
Is there a go-to site for these specific licenses or can I just purchase direct from Microsoft store or a hardware distributor -
Unless its changed recently Microsoft has also said that the hardware used for VDI has to be dedicated to a single client.
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@Joel said in Licensing from DaaS:
Thanks guys.
So to confirm, i need to purchase VDI licenses for each user who needs to use the DaaS environment?
Is there a go-to site for these specific licenses or can I just purchase direct from Microsoft store or a hardware distributorIt's really looking like trying to make a business around selling Windows based VDI is not practical from a legal perspective.
You can't purchase VDI licenses for your clients, they would have to purchase the licenses themselves. They you would have to setup dedicated servers for each client, removing your ability to load balance and share servers between customers. This makes you loose the advantage of selling this at any kind of cost savings to them.
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@Dashrender said in Licensing from DaaS:
@Joel said in Licensing from DaaS:
Thanks guys.
So to confirm, i need to purchase VDI licenses for each user who needs to use the DaaS environment?
Is there a go-to site for these specific licenses or can I just purchase direct from Microsoft store or a hardware distributorIt's really looking like trying to make a business around selling Windows based VDI is not practical from a legal perspective.
Not even possible. Anything that is VDI from Microsoft cannot be resold as a service. So if that is the goal, VDI (what Microsoft calls it) is immediately ruled out.
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@Dashrender said in Licensing from DaaS:
You can't purchase VDI licenses for your clients, they would have to purchase the licenses themselves. They you would have to setup dedicated servers for each client, removing your ability to load balance and share servers between customers. This makes you loose the advantage of selling this at any kind of cost savings to them.
Right, you can host their VDI, but you can't supply your VDI to them as a service. You can act like an IT department, but you can't act like a SaaS provider.
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@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
@Dashrender said in Licensing from DaaS:
You can't purchase VDI licenses for your clients, they would have to purchase the licenses themselves. They you would have to setup dedicated servers for each client, removing your ability to load balance and share servers between customers. This makes you loose the advantage of selling this at any kind of cost savings to them.
Right, you can host their VDI, but you can't supply your VDI to them as a service. You can act like an IT department, but you can't act like a SaaS provider.
Hrm, I wonder how places like ITProTV handling it? My guess is they're acting like an IT department, but I haven't actually read any of the licensing from Microsoft to know.
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@scottalanmiller said in Licensing from DaaS:
@travisdh1 said in Licensing from DaaS:
ITProTV
We'd have to see what they are really doing.
I don't have a paid account, so I don't get the free online VM to play with.
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I'm still a bit lost!!!
Our customer (lets call them ClientA) is working with a service provider (lets call them CompanyB).
Company B provides the DaaS environment for Client A of which is hosted on a dedicated server for them.Does ClientA have to buy/provide these VDI licenses themselves or should Company B provide them? I am being told by Company B that cant provide and we'd need to get them through Software Assurance or some kind of Enterprise licensing....
I'm the middle ground and trying to source the licensing or assist where I can and point in the right direction but feel like im going round in circles...Can anyone clarify pls?
Thanks -
This link helps explain it:
https://www.leostream.com/blog/navigating-microsoft-licensing-for-daas
but the question remains: If we want to use Windows 7 or 10, can I just by X amount of Windows licenses to match the number of virtual desktops?
Or is it better to use the Server desktop and then buy RDS Cals for each user!
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@Joel said in Licensing from DaaS:
Does ClientA have to buy/provide these VDI licenses themselves or should Company B provide them? I am being told by Company B that cant provide and we'd need to get them through Software Assurance or some kind of Enterprise licensing....
Correct. The company that USES the licenses, that is the customer - the one with people sitting down to do work on the VDI instances - is the only one able to purchase licenses for those instances. SA and Enterprise licensing is the only path to this.
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@Joel said in Licensing from DaaS:
This link helps explain it:
https://www.leostream.com/blog/navigating-microsoft-licensing-for-daas
but the question remains: If we want to use Windows 7 or 10, can I just by X amount of Windows licenses to match the number of virtual desktops?
Or is it better to use the Server desktop and then buy RDS Cals for each user!
Depends on how you want to make people license things and if the RDS experience will meet the needs.
