Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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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.
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@Chris said:
LMK what additional questions you have.
So for a BMR, in the case of open license, it's not an issue because you can just reassign the license, right? But in the case of an OEM license, is it true that in the case of total failure Microsoft will allow you to reinstall to new hardware? Is that true?
And in the case of a VM. You are saying that if I want to spin up a copy of my image just to make sure it is backing up properly and accessible, I need an additional license for that?
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@BRRABill said:
@Chris said:
LMK what additional questions you have.
So for a BMR, in the case of open license, it's not an issue because you can just reassign the license, right? But in the case of an OEM license, is it true that in the case of total failure Microsoft will allow you to reinstall to new hardware? Is that true?
And in the case of a VM. You are saying that if I want to spin up a copy of my image just to make sure it is backing up properly and accessible, I need an additional license for that?
No you can't reassign an Open License of Windows desktop OS. There are NO transfer or reassignment rights with Windows desktop OS Upgrade licenses via VL. I wrote an article on this here: http://community.spiceworks.com/how_to/124052-transferring-and-reassigning-windows-10-licensing-how-to
Additionally, NO, you can't move the OEM license to a replacement device, EVER. Even if the mobo dies, (unless you get an identical mobo) you need a new OEM Windows license.When licensing VDI, you don't license the server for Windows VDA or Windows SA - just the client accessing devices.
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I think that the big take aways are....
- Don't think of desktops as servers. Normally this would not occur to people to do but as all of the data is being stored on them it is causing you to think of them as little file servers.
- Think of replacing a desktop as either fixing the old one or replacing (in which case a new one has its own OEM license.)
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Using enterprise server backup software, which on its own is a good thing but huge overkill for desktops, is leading you towards odd thinking as well. Those vendors had no intention of their products being used for backing up desktops. Sure you can, it works and they are happy to support that but fundamentally no thought is put into getting that working because it's not an intended or assumed use case. So all of their processes and features are designed around the intention of there being server licenses involved.
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Sounds like just having a spare machine available might be the way to go.
