Microsoft Self-Audit Letter
-
@garak0410 said:
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yeah. Full user, no question.
Yeah that is a reason to go with the per core licensing instead of per user. Office people with spreadsheets are a really light, intermittent load generally.
-
@JaredBusch said:
@garak0410 said:
Our hole seems to be SQL...and it may be a large one too. If any user who uses even the simplest of spreadsheets that hits SQL to get data, they are considered a user, correct?
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh yeah. Full user, no question.
Yeah that is a reason to go with the per core licensing instead of per user. Office people with spreadsheets are a really light, intermittent load generally.
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?
-
@garak0410 said:
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?yes it is unlimited connections. Each license is for 2 cores though. So unless your SQL server is a virtual machine with only 2 cores, you will need to buy enough copies to match the number of cores in the server.
Base don the $6k number that sounds like two licenses so 4 cores?
-
@JaredBusch said:
@garak0410 said:
I got a quote for the Core SQL: $6,571.32
Vs Per User (50 Users): $8,611.20
And the Core is for an unlimited amount of users, right?yes it is unlimited connections. Each license is for 2 cores though. So unless your SQL server is a virtual machine with only 2 cores, you will need to buy enough copies to match the number of cores in the server.
Base don the $6k number that sounds like two licenses so 4 cores?
Yes...2 licenses...still much cheaper than the 50 users...
-
4 cores is the minimum purchase, right?
-
Yes.
-
OK, starting on my master spreadsheet today of our licensing. As per audit, I do not have to send this to Microsoft but it will be good for us going forward. I'll post questions for you licensing experts here.
First question...the original letter said not to uninstall anything that may be unlicensed at reception of the letter. If I find something installed that is unlicensed, even if we don't need it, do I buy as license for it?
-
@garak0410 said:
First question...the original letter said not to uninstall anything that may be unlicensed at reception of the letter. If I find something installed that is unlicensed, even if we don't need it, do I buy as license for it?
Legally, yes. You already owe Microsoft the money because you have it installed. You owe retroactively because you've been owing them all of this time. Just because you uninstall it doesn't change that.
Now will you ever get caught? Not likely. But ethically, it is money owed to Microsoft.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
First question...the original letter said not to uninstall anything that may be unlicensed at reception of the letter. If I find something installed that is unlicensed, even if we don't need it, do I buy as license for it?
Legally, yes. You already owe Microsoft the money because you have it installed. You owe retroactively because you've been owing them all of this time. Just because you uninstall it doesn't change that.
Now will you ever get caught? Not likely. But ethically, it is money owed to Microsoft.
And ethically, I would buy it because we are agreeing to do so in that document we have to sign over when the audit is complete.
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
-
@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
-
You can rebuild all that you want, it is transferring the license that you cannot do.
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
-
@garak0410 said:
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Next Question...we rebuilt our old server with Microsoft Windows Server Standard 2012 R2 2CPU/2VM - Base License - OEM. Is that a violation since this was a rebuild of an old server? This server is my "play" server so I am the only one who uses it but we do run Spiceworks from it.
OEM is fine as long as that is the only system on which that was ever applied.
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
No, because you're not using a Windows service.
-
@garak0410 said:
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
Yes, it is, because the users are internal. Only anonymous external users do not qualify as requiring CALs. Windows is NOT a good system to use for third party applications for this reason.
This "anonymous external" versus "known internal" differentiation is one of the huge caveats of using Windows.
Do you really have internal users that do not have CALs already, though?
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
Excellent...so if we run, say Spiceworks, on this second server, as mentioned above. If someone uses the Help Desk Portal, is that considered a CAL?
Yes, it is, because the users are internal. Only anonymous external users do not qualify as requiring CALs. Windows is NOT a good system to use for third party applications for this reason.
This "anonymous external" versus "known internal" differentiation is one of the huge caveats of using Windows.
Do you really have internal users that do not have CALs already, though?
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
-
@garak0410 said:
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
I don't understand. CALs are by user, not by server. CALs don't exist "on" anything.
-
A user only needs one CAL to access all the servers in your organisation. You don't need separate CALs for each server. But a Windows 2008 CAL will not give you access to a Windows 2012 server (although a 2012 CAL gives access to all earlier versions of Windows Server).
-
@scottalanmiller said:
@garak0410 said:
They have CALS's on our production host/domain controller but no on this "secondary" server...I purchased the OEM copy to rebuild this server but didn't consider CAL's needed for something as simple as the Spiceworks Portal.
I don't understand. CALs are by user, not by server. CALs don't exist "on" anything.
So by purchasing the 50 CAL's when I purchased 2012R2 for my main Hyper-V Host, that should carry over to my entire "enterprise"??
-
@Carnival-Boy said:
A user only needs one CAL to access all the servers in your organisation. You don't need separate CALs for each server. But a Windows 2008 CAL will not give you access to a Windows 2012 server (although a 2012 CAL gives access to all earlier versions of Windows Server).
Got it...so I am good there...
If I can just verify through the MLS that we may have the SQL CAL'S needed (awaiting the report from a vendor), we should end up being OK.
-
@garak0410 said:
So by purchasing the 50 CAL's when I purchased 2012R2 for my main Hyper-V Host, that should carry over to my enter "enterprise"??
CALs are assigned to people. That you purchased them at the same time as something isn't relevant. Once a user in the company is licensed to access servers, they can access servers. You are licensing the people.
Each server needs one server license, each person needs a user license (CAL.) It's that simple. There is no user to server mapping license. Think about what that would mean in an enterprise with 10,000 servers. It would be $300,000 PER USER for access rights. Even a secretary or a receptionist would need $300K of licenses just for them to do basic tasks like logging in. If you applied the same logic to SQL Server and Exchange suddenly you are spending half a million or more for every employee that comes in the door on their first day! No one could run Windows.
