Remote Desktop setup on Server 2012 R2 Standard
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@scottalanmiller OK, I am beginning to understand now. But, what can one use the 5 CALs for if you in addition need the 5 RDS licenses? What is their intended use?
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@flomer You need a CAL for every user (or device) accessing anything from a Windows Server in your organization. Remote Desktop Services is a specialty licensed service ontop of Windows Server.
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller OK, I am beginning to understand now. But, what can one use the 5 CALs for if you in addition need the 5 RDS licenses? What is their intended use?
Server CALs (what you have now) give you the right to use server resources of any type. You need them for using the server, plain and simple. You need them for authenticating, looking at web pages, anything. They do not grant access to the desktop of the server, only to generic server resources.
RDS CALs are remote access licenses. They are needed if you want users to not just access server resources but to access the server desktop through RDP, VNC or similar protocols.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
@flomer You need a CAL for every user (or device) accessing anything from a Windows Server in your organization. Remote Desktop Services is a specialty licensed service ontop of Windows Server.
Specifically they allow you yo use DNS, file sharing, authentication, etc. As Scott said.
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@Dashrender said:
@brianlittlejohn said:
@flomer You need a CAL for every user (or device) accessing anything from a Windows Server in your organization. Remote Desktop Services is a specialty licensed service ontop of Windows Server.
Specifically they allow you yo use DNS, file sharing, authentication, etc. As Scott said.
Exactly. Plus Active Directory, applications running on top of Windows, etc.
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@scottalanmiller So, what exactly can one use Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for right after installing it and just applying the license that comes along with it? I'm trying to understand what is possible without additional licenses, as I'm unsure right now...
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller So, what exactly can one use Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for right after installing it and just applying the license that comes along with it? I'm trying to understand what is possible without additional licenses, as I'm unsure right now...
You cannot use it for anything that concerns a user connecting to it for a service. AD, DNS, DHCP, File shares, etc.
You can use it all you want to run a program that does its own thing without letting a user connect in form another device.
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@flomer Without CALs, very little legally. WIth CALs, anything the server can provide WEB, DHCP, DNS, FILESERVER, AD, etc. except Desktop Services, which are specially licensed.
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller So, what exactly can one use Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard for right after installing it and just applying the license that comes along with it? I'm trying to understand what is possible without additional licenses, as I'm unsure right now...
Nothing except for anonymous Internet services - like it could be a public web server. You need CALs for any normal usage. The Server licence is just the first piece of the puzzle.
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@brianlittlejohn said:
@flomer Without CALs, very little legally. WIth CALs, anything the server can provide WEB, DHCP, DNS, FILESERVER, AD, etc. except Desktop Services, which are specially licensed.
You CAN use it for a single user as a desktop. But you might as well just buy Windows 10 in that case
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@flomer said:
I'm trying to understand what is possible without additional licenses, as I'm unsure right now...
For all intents and purposes... nothing.
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Once you decide to go Windows, you more or less are committed to the licensing that that entails. As a starting point, without only the rarest exceptions, you will always need:
- One Server license per server
- One Server CAL per user
While there are exceptions, there would be super rare and very special cases. Just assume that if you decide to use Windows servers, you have committed to the two things above. Every user in the company (meaning anyone that uses a computer) will need a CAL. Even if you only have one Windows server or a thousand of them, you need one CAL per user.
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@scottalanmiller Hmm... I get a creeping feeling that there might be a server here and there that might be running without the striclty required number/type of licenses. My present project just got a bit more expensive
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller Hmm... I get a creeping feeling that there might be a server here and there that might be running without the striclty required number/type of licenses. My present project just got a bit more expensive
The need for RDS CALS is your expense here. Normal user CALS are not typically that much of a factor.
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@flomer said:
@scottalanmiller Hmm... I get a creeping feeling that there might be a server here and there that might be running without the striclty required number/type of licenses. My present project just got a bit more expensive
When you choose Windows, especially for software that is going to require remote desktops rather than running as modern software, you have decided on an extremely expensive solution. That's a ton of money that you need to spend before even getting started. If you choose SQL Server as part of the mix, that cost goes up dramatically again.
Using Windows for custom software is something that you do either because you have already spent all of that money and don't care any more or you lack the skills to make things that are cheaper and are "buying" your way out of needing those skills. Choosing Windows as a requirement for a product incurs immense cost both in acquiring proper licensing as well as in license management. Not to mention a huge loss of flexibility in general and a loss of optional deployment scenarios.
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Since this is your own software, why not build it so that you don't have these costly requirements?
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@scottalanmiller said:
If you choose SQL Server as part of the mix, that cost goes up dramatically again.
SQL Server Express is perfectly designed for this scenario and is 100% free, so that statement is not true.
That statement is true for many scenarios with custom software, but not his example.
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@scottalanmiller Well, back in the late ninties we used to be a Unix shop, since our software required laaarge servers and lots of processing powers. The customers really wanted us to change to Windows, and over the years we even started using Java rather than C++/Motif, so now we are stuck in Windows-land for most projects. Since we are using Java, I guess I will inform the project leaders that Windows licenses actually might be a bigger cost than we originally thought... Only one of our customers still use Linux, but it's their system that we never have any problems with
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Java? For fat clients? Ugh. Better than some options, but not good at all. What is driving you to have fat clients at all? That was already considered a bad practice by the later half of the 1990s except where special needs made modern technology impossible. Most of those cases are gone by now.
I would look at good customer education here. Clients moving FROM Linux to Windows is absolutely crazy. Offering both is fine, but the cost of licenses, lack of flexibility, lack of support options.... that's nuts. Especially if you have Java which runs better on Linux already!
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@scottalanmiller Customer education is not so easy... We want them to choose our product, and like I said, the users were all afraid of Unix/Linux. In many ways some of us working with the software have always looked at Windows as being inferior. After many years I guess it is getting quite usable, but I am surprised about all the licenses we require and the complication it all leads to...
Thanks for all the answers!
I'll order the necessary RDS CALs and get this sorted out right.
