Everything That There Is To Know About VDI Licensing with Windows
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@scottalanmiller said:
Everything I have seen from everyone, including Chris, is that VDA is the most expensive option. VDA is a special case fallback for large companies that want to use non-Windows thin clients.
Is that really the case?
Considering that most WES7/8 thin clients are generally more $$ than the Linux equivalent?
Is VDA still needed with a Windows thin client?If we now consider the Remix Mini at $70, is that enough to offset the VDA price differential?
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@FATeknollogee said:
Is VDA still needed with a Windows thin client?
VDA is not needed if your primary device is licensed with Windows SA. Then you go to SA licensing.
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@FATeknollogee said:
Is that really the case?
Considering that most WES7/8 thin clients are generally more $$ than the Linux equivalent?If we now consider the Remix Mini at $70, is that enough to offset the VDA price differential?
The assumption is that the thin clients are free and not part of the picture. If you include $70 for the Remix Mini, that's $70 more than something that is already more expensive.
The VDA licensing is designed to ensure that you never pay less when doing VDA, just to make sure that the money goes to MS instead of to someone else.
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@Chris(GG)
You've got a few options here, depending on if you qualify for the larger MPSA/Select/EA type VL agreements.
Chris said the above to me. I don't qualify for MPSA or Select or EA type VLs, so I don't know if User based SA's are available to me - I read it that they are not.
So this reduces my options to Enterprise UPG + SA or VDA. Which sucks, because the User SA license sounds awesome. I'm trying to understand why MS wouldn't want to sell it to smaller companies other than to just charge us more, assuming that the User +SA is less than the cost of the Enterprise UPG + SA is
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@scottalanmiller said:
@FATeknollogee said:
Is VDA still needed with a Windows thin client?
VDA is not needed if your primary device is licensed with Windows SA. Then you go to SA licensing.
But plan SA is no longer available - instead you must buy Enterprise Upgrade with SA, that's quite a bit more than just SA used to be.
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@Dashrender said:
@Chris(GG)
You've got a few options here, depending on if you qualify for the larger MPSA/Select/EA type VL agreements.
Chris said the above to me. I don't qualify for MPSA or Select or EA type VLs, so I don't know if User based SA's are available to me - I read it that they are not.
So this reduces my options to Enterprise UPG + SA or VDA. Which sucks, because the User SA license sounds awesome. I'm trying to understand why MS wouldn't want to sell it to smaller companies other than to just charge us more, assuming that the User +SA is less than the cost of the Enterprise UPG + SA is
Smaller companies are really not VDI customers. What do you want to use it for? What's the use case and number of users?
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@Dashrender said:
But plan SA is no longer available - instead you must buy Enterprise Upgrade with SA, that's quite a bit more than just SA used to be.
This pricing change was made before they declared that SA was cheaper than VDA
EU + SA is about how much? What's the cost of VDA?
Remember that before, VDA was the only option and the price was literally insane. That EU + SA is the minimum, it's still a bit cheaper.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
But plan SA is no longer available - instead you must buy Enterprise Upgrade with SA, that's quite a bit more than just SA used to be.
This pricing change was made before they declared that SA was cheaper than VDA
EU + SA is about how much? What's the cost of VDA?
Remember that before, VDA was the only option and the price was literally insane. That EU + SA is the minimum, it's still a bit cheaper.
When was VDA ever the only option? I thought SA always included it? When VDA was created, the features were added to SA at the same time (or so I thought).
The last time I knew, EU was like $125 - $180, and SA was $130, combined that's $255-$310 for the first 2 years, then $130 every 2 years after. Wasn't VDA like $200/yr? maybe less?
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@Dashrender said:
When was VDA ever the only option? I thought SA always included it? When VDA was created, the features were added to SA at the same time (or so I thought).
Pretty sure until 2015, VDA was the only option. Since SA didn't cover your devices. You still needed a VDA license for every device you would use.
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@Dashrender said:
The last time I knew, EU was like $125 - $180, and SA was $130, combined that's $255-$310 for the first 2 years, then $130 every 2 years after. Wasn't VDA like $200/yr? maybe less?
VDA was $100/year/device. If you are doing things short term, VDA is and was cheaper. Chris mentions three years as the crossover point in December. Which is likely true. And who deploys VDI for under three years? Not many people. Someone, but not many.
VDA was really brutal when it meant that VDI was tied to a single end point. Pretty much defeated the point of VDI as there was no mobility.
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Leaving eveything else off the table, ridiculous or not, I proposed the following to Chris (GG)
ten Windows 10 Pro OEM PCs with accompanying ten EU + SA licenses
single Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 (not the service upgrade inside normal server) i.e. no Windows server license required at all running ten Windows 10 pro VMsConsidering the above, would I need any additional licensing?
his response was
I think you're missing the method of how you're delivering the VMs from the server to the client. Hyper-V is a free product to virtualize an OS, but it works along with RDS to deliver the VMs from the server to the devices. Given this, you have all the licensing options correct (Win Ent Upgrade w/SA) for the client, but you still need to figure out how your clients will interact with the VMs. As far as I understand it, Hyper-V wont deliver the VMs themselves, that's what you need to figure out and license accordingly.
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@Dashrender said:
Leaving eveything else off the table, ridiculous or not, I proposed the following to Chris (GG)
ten Windows 10 Pro OEM PCs with accompanying ten EU + SA licenses
single Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 (not the service upgrade inside normal server) i.e. no Windows server license required at all running ten Windows 10 pro VMsConsidering the above, would I need any additional licensing?
his response was
I think you're missing the method of how you're delivering the VMs from the server to the client. Hyper-V is a free product to virtualize an OS, but it works along with RDS to deliver the VMs from the server to the devices. Given this, you have all the licensing options correct (Win Ent Upgrade w/SA) for the client, but you still need to figure out how your clients will interact with the VMs. As far as I understand it, Hyper-V wont deliver the VMs themselves, that's what you need to figure out and license accordingly.
Right, Hyper-V doesn't do it. It doesn't need to. Each of your VMs handles the RDP themselves. There is no problem to solve here, unless you are implying one that you don't mention.
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How I read that concern:
I have a car, I'd like to go to the store, will the road support my car?
A: Yes, the road supports cars. But you've not mentioned how you want to drive, you'll need a vehicle.
Um, okay, but I have a car, I'll just drive that.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Leaving eveything else off the table, ridiculous or not, I proposed the following to Chris (GG)
ten Windows 10 Pro OEM PCs with accompanying ten EU + SA licenses
single Hyper-V Server 2012 R2 (not the service upgrade inside normal server) i.e. no Windows server license required at all running ten Windows 10 pro VMsConsidering the above, would I need any additional licensing?
his response was
I think you're missing the method of how you're delivering the VMs from the server to the client. Hyper-V is a free product to virtualize an OS, but it works along with RDS to deliver the VMs from the server to the devices. Given this, you have all the licensing options correct (Win Ent Upgrade w/SA) for the client, but you still need to figure out how your clients will interact with the VMs. As far as I understand it, Hyper-V wont deliver the VMs themselves, that's what you need to figure out and license accordingly.
Right, Hyper-V doesn't do it. It doesn't need to. Each of your VMs handles the RDP themselves. There is no problem to solve here, unless you are implying one that you don't mention.
Chris is implying that there is a problem to solve - the VM's (though his implication) can't do it themselves, at least not for free. If they do it, you have to pay for it - what we don't know right now.. is how. Of course if you were using Citrix or Vmware's products, then you'd be paying for their remote access connection, but we're talking about MS's connection option. He's seeming to think something needs to be here, but doesn't know what.
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The thing that is happening, that no one is willing to say (I'm 98% sure on that) is that most people take VDI and layer on assumptions about what that includes (just like how people use the term virtualization but mean consolidation) to mean things that VDI does not imply. One of the most common things is to mean an additional management system for the VDI hosts. This is common and very useful but it is not part of VDI and not required in any way.
One way that this is handled is with RDS. Another is with XenDesktop. Small shops often do nothing. It's purely optional.
But since so many people just assume that every VDI deployment is going to have a "special" VDI management system, they start lumping that cost, overheard and licensing into VDI discussions without saying that they are, or why, and VDI turns from simple into confusing.
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@scottalanmiller said:
How I read that concern:
I have a car, I'd like to go to the store, will the road support my car?
A: Yes, the road supports cars. But you've not mentioned how you want to drive, you'll need a vehicle.
Um, okay, but I have a car, I'll just drive that.
to use your analogy - according to Chris, someone has to pay for the road - the road is NEVER free.
Of course we use RDC (which uses the RDP protocol) because it's built it, and you're assuming it's free - but Chris doesn't seem to think so.. and really at this point I have no idea if it is or not.
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@Dashrender said:
Chris is implying that there is a problem to solve - the VM's (though his implication) can't do it themselves,
Nope, he didn't imply that. Like a good salesman he let you imply that yourself.
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@scottalanmiller said:
The thing that is happening, that no one is willing to say (I'm 98% sure on that) is that most people take VDI and layer on assumptions about what that includes (just like how people use the term virtualization but mean consolidation) to mean things that VDI does not imply. One of the most common things is to mean an additional management system for the VDI hosts. This is common and very useful but it is not part of VDI and not required in any way.
One way that this is handled is with RDS. Another is with XenDesktop. Small shops often do nothing. It's purely optional.
But since so many people just assume that every VDI deployment is going to have a "special" VDI management system, they start lumping that cost, overheard and licensing into VDI discussions without saying that they are, or why, and VDI turns from simple into confusing.
OOOOK I think you might have just hit the nail on the head!
I dig it!
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@Dashrender said:
Of course if you were using Citrix or Vmware's products, then you'd be paying for their remote access connection, but we're talking about MS's connection option. He's seeming to think something needs to be here, but doesn't know what.
Nope, that's not how that works either. This has nothing whatsoever to do with virtualization, it has to do with a misunderstanding of RDS. If you use XenApp in a case where XenApp is needed, RDS is needed to. You can't replace RDS with another technology, RDS licensing applies to use cases, not technologies.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
Of course if you were using Citrix or Vmware's products, then you'd be paying for their remote access connection, but we're talking about MS's connection option. He's seeming to think something needs to be here, but doesn't know what.
Nope, that's not how that works either. This has nothing whatsoever to do with virtualization, it has to do with a misunderstanding of RDS. If you use XenApp in a case where XenApp is needed, RDS is needed to. You can't replace RDS with another technology, RDS licensing applies to use cases, not technologies.
This I understand!
