Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Oh sure, BMR they will likely let you slide. But that's not what we were discussing
The strategy that you had that I was talking about is a VDI strategy. If you drop the VDI strategy and go to a BMR one, sure the VDI issues will not apply.One of the selling points of these systems is being able to spin up a virtual copy of your machine at any time. Datto even spins one up every night to provide a screenshot that it is indeed booting. I got the impresion you were thining that counted as VDI. It does not?
If you are using Windows desktops instead of Windows server ANY VM needs VDI licensing, no exceptions. What you have just described is exactly the VDI I was mentioning above. This is not BMR, it is VDI. So you have huge licensing overhead required here, both in money and in effort to track and maintain.
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@Dashrender said:
I bet strictly speaking that it does count as VDI.
Even very, very loosely. It's easy, answer these questions....
- Is it a Windows desktop OS (Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 or 10?)
- Is it virtualized?
- Is it anywhere but on your local desktop?
If those three are true, it's VDI. This is very clearly VDI.
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I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
But, the moment that you vituralize a desktop OS on a VM server like ESXi or Hyper-V you have VDI, and I suppose if you do it on a server with something like VirtualBox, I'm not sure where that goes?
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@Dashrender said:
I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
Not as stated, no. That would violate question 3 unless it is your local desktop. Once you access from RDP, VNC, etc. you are remote and back to VDI.
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@Dashrender said:
But, the moment that you vituralize a desktop OS on a VM server like ESXi or Hyper-V you have VDI
Which is what he is doing here. He's virtualizing desktops on a server.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
I thought you could install a desktop OS as a VM on a desktop OS without a VDI license. Think XP Mode on Win7. Is that not the case?
Not as stated, no. That would violate question 3 unless it is your local desktop. Once you access from RDP, VNC, etc. you are remote and back to VDI.
aww.. posts crossed in the ether.
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@Dashrender said:
and I suppose if you do it on a server with something like VirtualBox, I'm not sure where that goes?
Not a factor. Whether you are using VirtualPC (what XP Mode uses), VIrtualBox or HyperV the licensing is always the same.
As with HyperV discussions elsewhere.... Microsoft OS licensing is never impacted by the which virtualization product you choose. You can be confident that those will never be tied together for legal reasons.
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i guess since you are only running it for a few seconds, they consider it a gray area. I don't know.
I didn't find much in Google other than ShadowProtect has nothing to do with licensing.
Does this forum have product people we can ask? That would be an interesting one to ask.
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@BRRABill said:
i guess since you are only running it for a few seconds, they consider it a gray area. I don't know.
Who says that? It's not a few seconds, nor is it an emergency as it is a planned secondary site. As far as I can tell, this is full on VDI without the slightest hint of grey area.
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@BRRABill said:
I didn't find much in Google other than ShadowProtect has nothing to do with licensing.
That's all that there would be. It's standard VDI, there is nothing weird or "kinda" VDI about it. It is running desktops from a server accessing them remotely. It is basically the stock example of middle of the road VDI.
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So I guess the question for @chris is:
What are the MS rules when it comes to disaster recovery? Again, we are only talking about using a BMR (which also requires activation) or a VM in a disaster recovery scenario.
It would probably be good to know both about server and desktop OSes as both can be backed up using these products.
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@BRRABill said:
What are the MS rules when it comes to disaster recovery? Again, we are only talking about using a BMR (which also requires activation) or a VM in a disaster recovery scenario.
BMR is not part of the equation here. It's only the VDI being used that is in question. BMR is just activation, as long as you have volume licenses you have no issue there at all, it is only OEM licenses that cannot do a BMR recovery.
The licensing question here is purely around the intended use of a VDI solution as your DR plan. Clearly when there is no DR being used, no VDI is in play. But the moment that you go to DR, you are doing a planned VDI spin up. DR solutions have always needed to be licensed, if they did not you would just implement something crappy for cheap and fail to something expensive and not need to pay for it (which is actually what is happening here, the high end expensive solution is your DR, not your production plan.)
No different than how you have to license Windows Server properly for whatever your DR planning is.
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@BRRABill said:
It would probably be good to know both about server and desktop OSes as both can be backed up using these products.
Server is normal and why these products exist. There are standard licensing needs for Windows Server DR. Either you need license mobility or you need duplicate licenses.
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As this client is only five PCs, I have a suspicion that you are running OEM copies of Windows and have not gotten them a volume license deal? This could be a problem. Not only would you be lacking VDI licensing, if this is the case, but you would have unlicensed OSes going to the DR site as well.
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@scottalanmiller said:
As this client is only five PCs, I have a suspicion that you are running OEM copies of Windows and have not gotten them a volume license deal? This could be a problem. Not only would you be lacking VDI licensing, if this is the case, but you would have unlicensed OSes going to the DR site as well.
Yeah this has branched into another topic, really.
The VDI licensing question is really only in relation to all the products on the market that allow you to spin up VMs for disaster recovery.
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@scottalanmiller said:
As this client is only five PCs, I have a suspicion that you are running OEM copies of Windows and have not gotten them a volume license deal? This could be a problem. Not only would you be lacking VDI licensing, if this is the case, but you would have unlicensed OSes going to the DR site as well.
That a lesson I did learn recently. While apparently MS can be flexible sometimes with OEM licensing, it is much easier to have volume licensing.
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@BRRABill said:
The VDI licensing question is really only in relation to all the products on the market that allow you to spin up VMs for disaster recovery.
Correct. But that's a big piece of your current planning and the reason that you wanted image backups sitting in the cloud.
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@BRRABill said:
That a lesson I did learn recently. While apparently MS can be flexible sometimes with OEM licensing, it is much easier to have volume licensing.
Yes, with OEM I've seen a little flexibility if hardware has failed and is being replaced in situ. That I can see some grey area in "well the motherboard died but the rest of the machine is still there." But VDI I've never heard of grey area on.
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@BRRABill said:
So I guess the question for @chris is:
What are the MS rules when it comes to disaster recovery? Again, we are only talking about using a BMR (which also requires activation) or a VM in a disaster recovery scenario.
It would probably be good to know both about server and desktop OSes as both can be backed up using these products.
There are no "disaster recovery" rights with Windows desktop OS licensing.
As Scott mentioned, licensing a Windows desktop OS VM from a server requires a license from Microsoft in this scenario. The license options are either Windows SA or Windows VDA depending on the device and OS installed. There is a ton of documentation on this topic.
I wrote a how-to on this here: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124053-licensing-windows-10-with-virtualization-technologies-how-to
Microsoft has a VL brief on this topic here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Licensing/learn-more/brief-windows-virtual-machine.aspxLMK what additional questions you have.
