Backup System For 5 PC SMB
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@BRRABill said:
a -- just booting the image to see if it boots so you know your backups are legit. (Aka, how else could you test to be sure you can actually do a BMR if needed?)
This part is reasonable and I could see being allowed, sort of.
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@BRRABill said:
b -- actually using the machine, but while the other is dead, and only in a temporary capacity
This is the part that does not sound in any way reasonable to me. "Temporary" is a very vague term here. You say "temporary capacity", but I hear "optional VDI." This is a full on VDI situation and you can get the functionality better in other ways, so there is no need for MS to provide this from a functionality standpoint and reasons to avoid it from a licensing nightmare standpoint, IMHO.
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@scottalanmiller said:
@BRRABill said:
b -- actually using the machine, but while the other is dead, and only in a temporary capacity
This is the part that does not sound in any way reasonable to me. "Temporary" is a very vague term here. You say "temporary capacity", but I hear "optional VDI." This is a full on VDI situation and you can get the functionality better in other ways, so there is no need for MS to provide this from a functionality standpoint and reasons to avoid it from a licensing nightmare standpoint, IMHO.
Again, this is just for desktops, right?
You'd see the functionality of it at a server level.
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@BRRABill said:
You'd see the functionality of it at a server level.
Yes because they are already virtualized.
If you were coming from VDI and doing this, it would be completely reasonable.
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And bam, we found the reason that all of these products exist, why they are promoted, why everything going on is legit....
All of these products are talking about imaging and restoring a machine. In the desktop world, if you are starting from VDI, all of this makes perfect sense. It is "starting from physical" and doing "DR to VDI" that is the issue. If we go physical to physical OR virtual to virtual it all works.
Servers are different only because we assume a physical situation would not exist. That's what makes it different, primarily, between the two.
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@scottalanmiller said:
Yes because they are already virtualized.
Ah, I understand.
So that is why it is legal on the server side, because the odds are you are already using a virtual copy of the server.
What if for some terrible reason you weren't. If it was a physical server, would the same roadblocks happen?
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no, because MS allows you to move non OEM server licenses to the hosts every 90 days, be it physical or virtual.
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@Dashrender said:
no, because MS allows you to move non OEM server licenses to the hosts every 90 days, be it physical or virtual.
So how does booting up the VM periodically (say every week) to test it fall under that?
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@BRRABill said:
@Dashrender said:
no, because MS allows you to move non OEM server licenses to the hosts every 90 days, be it physical or virtual.
So how does booting up the VM periodically (say every week) to test it fall under that?
Unrelated use cases.
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If you're talking about a physical server that is backed up, and you're turning on a VM copy weekly as part of your test, yeah You're breaking the license agreement.
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@BRRABill said:
@scottalanmiller said:
Yes because they are already virtualized.
Ah, I understand.
So that is why it is legal on the server side, because the odds are you are already using a virtual copy of the server.
What if for some terrible reason you weren't. If it was a physical server, would the same roadblocks happen?
No, server licensing has no VDI concept and none of these limitations. VDI is purely a use case for customers who either really see value in it at huge scale or, far more likely, screwed something up, are locked in and have little other choice. So in both cases, it is huge cost.
This entire conceptual problem is all one from the "using Windows desktop licenses" perspective.
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If you used server licenses for this stuff you'd have a completely different picture. Microsoft offers licensing for all of these scenarios. Using Windows desktop limitations is what causes this. If you had Windows servers on your desktops, you can go physical to virtual and back all that you want, for example. And you can get a DC license so that you can move workloads all that you want.
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I still wonder if since the license is being used (on the running server) at the same time you are testing it's bootability, if that would be an issue.
Or am I again missing how server is being licensed?
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The long and the short of this is, the desired solution is just not what should be looked at for this problem.
We've been beating this topic to death with very little gain. I realize that @BRRABill isn't happy seeing vendors selling things and making claims that appear to be illegal, but this isn't new. It happens every day.
How about we work toward a real solution to his problem instead of continuously hashing over why this is illegal, improper, etc.
steps off soap box.. sorry.... just had to rant a bit, nothing personal.
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@Dashrender said:
The long and the short of this is, the desired solution is just not what should be looked at for this problem.
We've been beating this topic to death with very little gain. I realize that @BRRABill isn't happy seeing vendors selling things and making claims that appear to be illegal, but this isn't new. It happens every day.
How about we work toward a real solution to his problem instead of continuously hashing over why this is illegal, improper, etc.
steps off soap box.. sorry.... just had to rant a bit, nothing personal.
However, we did, after all of that, circle around to why these products exist and where some of the unique nuances exist. We kept taking different tacks and finally found one that was really important - the piece that we had been missing. That if this was being done purely through VDI, all of these products are legal and work exactly as described. We figured out where disconnect was and found that it was purely the use of the DR as a P2V workaround that was the issue.
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None taken.
It's more informative at this point.
I have an idea what to do with the OP.
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But I still question the testing use of spinning up the image to test. You'd have that license live TWICE. Is that legal? Can you VDI the same license as much as you want?
(I'm unfamiliar with VDI licenses.)
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@scottalanmiller said:
@Dashrender said:
The long and the short of this is, the desired solution is just not what should be looked at for this problem.
We've been beating this topic to death with very little gain. I realize that @BRRABill isn't happy seeing vendors selling things and making claims that appear to be illegal, but this isn't new. It happens every day.
How about we work toward a real solution to his problem instead of continuously hashing over why this is illegal, improper, etc.
steps off soap box.. sorry.... just had to rant a bit, nothing personal.
However, we did, after all of that, circle around to why these products exist and where some of the unique nuances exist. We kept taking different tacks and finally found one that was really important - the piece that we had been missing. That if this was being done purely through VDI, all of these products are legal and work exactly as described. We figured out where disconnect was and found that it was purely the use of the DR as a P2V workaround that was the issue.
LOL Yeah, I considered that during my rant. Though I'd argue that's a pretty poor use case though side benefit that probably even the software vendor themselves didn't actually consider.
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@BRRABill said:
But I still question the testing use of spinning up the image to test. You'd have that license live TWICE. Is that legal? Can you VDI the same license as much as you want?
(I'm unfamiliar with VDI licenses.)
VDI licensing is based upon the devices accessing the VDI instances. I think I read somewhere that you can have 3 VDI instances per VDI Device license you have. But that might be out of date now.
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@BRRABill said:
But I still question the testing use of spinning up the image to test. You'd have that license live TWICE. Is that legal? Can you VDI the same license as much as you want?
(I'm unfamiliar with VDI licenses.)
No, you license by capacity regardless of how you use it. But with VDI you can license by capacity. That's the difference.
