Windows Licensing and VPS
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Likely using the same "haha, buyer beware" process that Cloud@Cost uses:
https://mangolassi.it/topic/4842/why-you-cannot-effectively-run-windows-on-cloudatcost
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
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@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
Right. Microsoft have announced that they are going to release a license that allows for this sort of use, but it is not Datacenter.
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@travisdh1 said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
Right. Microsoft have announced that they are going to release a license that allows for this sort of use, but it is not Datacenter.
They've had one for a long time. It's a special license so that everyone knows that it is the cloud provider paying for the license, rather than a "bring your own" license like datacenter would be.
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The thing that makes this work is that the need to license datacenter is born by the customer, not the cloud provider. So in an investigation or lawsuit, it is the customer that gets hit, not the provider.
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BuyVM is still around, and still offering Free Microsoft Windows Server for Free...
(I realize this does not mean that it is licensed correctly...)
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
OK, my bad... just talked to a friend, thought he knew a Contabo representative, but I was wrong. Sorry.
Maybe just write them a mail and ask for their licensing model?
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@aaronstuder said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
BuyVM is still around, and still offering Free Microsoft Windows Server for Free...
(I realize this does not mean that it is licensed correctly...)
Yup, there is loads of money to be made in putting customers at risk
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@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
OK, my bad... just talked to a friend, thought he knew a Contabo representative, but I was wrong. Sorry.
Maybe just write them a mail and ask for their licensing model?
But they published the licensing. MS has been very clear on this point, there isn't any ambiguity or anything to ask. What do you expect us to ask them? "Excuse me, but clearly you aren't providing MS licenses properly, is that an accident or are just just lying?"
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
OK, my bad... just talked to a friend, thought he knew a Contabo representative, but I was wrong. Sorry.
Maybe just write them a mail and ask for their licensing model?
But they published the licensing. MS has been very clear on this point, there isn't any ambiguity or anything to ask. What do you expect us to ask them? "Excuse me, but clearly you aren't providing MS licenses properly, is that an accident or are just just lying?"
If you think that they are abusing Microsoft licenses, feel free to report them. I do know nothing about VPS and hoster licensing, not my business.
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@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@thwr said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Datacenter licensing and good contracts?
Pushing risk to the customer, is what it is. DC isn't an option for service providers. So by using it, you have to buy Windows licenses and pay for their entire cloud to be covered.
Only heard good things about them up to this point. But before we start guessing.. I know someone who knows someone who knows... one of the Contabo guys. Maybe he can bring some light into this.
Only so much light to bring, we know that Datacenter licensing can't be used in this way. That that is listed, tells us what we need to know.
OK, my bad... just talked to a friend, thought he knew a Contabo representative, but I was wrong. Sorry.
Maybe just write them a mail and ask for their licensing model?
But they published the licensing. MS has been very clear on this point, there isn't any ambiguity or anything to ask. What do you expect us to ask them? "Excuse me, but clearly you aren't providing MS licenses properly, is that an accident or are just just lying?"
If you think that they are abusing Microsoft licenses, feel free to report them. I do know nothing about VPS and hoster licensing, not my business.
They might be in China for all I know, and out of reach of Microsoft's legal team. Doesn't matter, it is the customers who are liable, not the host. So whether they are or not is irrelevant. It's warning people not to be tricked into thinking that they can safely use them that is important.
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Interesting... The more cores you have, the more the windows licensing costs...
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@aaronstuder said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
Interesting... The more cores you have, the more the windows licensing costs...
That's odd. Since that's not how Microsoft charges VPS providers.
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Amazon seems to be able to do it
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@aaronstuder seems to do what? Amazon is NOT claiming to do Datacenter licensing, it is SPLA. And if you look at how tiny those instances are, they are definitely charging the normal Windows amount for them. So nothing like any of the ones that we've been questioning. It is, in fact, these Amazon numbers that make us realize how far off the other vendors are that are not charging plausible rates for Windows.
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@aaronstuder seems to do what? Amazon is NOT claiming to do Datacenter licensing, it is SPLA. And if you look at how tiny those instances are, they are definitely charging the normal Windows amount for them. So nothing like any of the ones that we've been questioning. It is, in fact, these Amazon numbers that make us realize how far off the other vendors are that are not charging plausible rates for Windows.
But Amazon has Datacenter on the systems through EC2 as far as I hosted Windows Servers there.
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@dbeato said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@aaronstuder seems to do what? Amazon is NOT claiming to do Datacenter licensing, it is SPLA. And if you look at how tiny those instances are, they are definitely charging the normal Windows amount for them. So nothing like any of the ones that we've been questioning. It is, in fact, these Amazon numbers that make us realize how far off the other vendors are that are not charging plausible rates for Windows.
But Amazon has Datacenter on the systems through EC2 as far as I hosted Windows Servers there.
Are you sure that they are DC not SPLA?
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@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@dbeato said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@aaronstuder seems to do what? Amazon is NOT claiming to do Datacenter licensing, it is SPLA. And if you look at how tiny those instances are, they are definitely charging the normal Windows amount for them. So nothing like any of the ones that we've been questioning. It is, in fact, these Amazon numbers that make us realize how far off the other vendors are that are not charging plausible rates for Windows.
But Amazon has Datacenter on the systems through EC2 as far as I hosted Windows Servers there.
Are you sure that they are DC not SPLA?
It is SPLA https://aws.amazon.com/windows/faq/
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@dbeato said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@dbeato said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@scottalanmiller said in Windows Licensing and VPS:
@aaronstuder seems to do what? Amazon is NOT claiming to do Datacenter licensing, it is SPLA. And if you look at how tiny those instances are, they are definitely charging the normal Windows amount for them. So nothing like any of the ones that we've been questioning. It is, in fact, these Amazon numbers that make us realize how far off the other vendors are that are not charging plausible rates for Windows.
But Amazon has Datacenter on the systems through EC2 as far as I hosted Windows Servers there.
Are you sure that they are DC not SPLA?
It is SPLA https://aws.amazon.com/windows/faq/
Right, that's the key difference. Amazon uses SPLA, like Vultr does, and clearly covers the cost of it. These others, say Datacenter instead of SPLA, and don't cover the costs.
It's the combination of claiming a different license and being absurdly cheap, too cheap to pay for SPLA, that is the tip off.
