ES-OVS

[rjf2019]

We have an annual agreement with MS in a school with 29 FTE members of staff, 40 Windows PCs, and 1 Windows server.

 

I'd really like to understand more about it, and wonder if anyone could tell me more about what these include.

 

a) Microsoft®DesktopEducation AllLng License/SoftwareAssurancePack Academic OLV 1License LevelF Enterprise 1Year

 

b) Microsoft®WindowsServerSTDCORE AllLng License/SoftwareAssurancePack Academic OLV16Licenses LevelF AdditionalProduct CoreLic 1Year

 

Could I buy a server or PC with no OS and be covered by these? (We sometimes get offers of donations from local businesses.)

 

Thanks,

 

RJF

[johnlevis]

Hi @rjf2019

 

The agreement is based on your FTE count ie anyone who uses a computer and works more than 200 hours a year.

 

a)Includes all of the following:

Office

Windows

Core cal Suite (this also gives you rights to manage endpoints using SCCM - https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/cloud-platform/system-center-configuration-manager )

 

Licencing your FTE count allows you to:

 

Install Office and Windows on all school devices

Have all your licencing managed in one place – one Windows key, one Office key

If you licence Office Pro, you qualify for free Office 365 for staff and pupil’s personal use

 

You will still need a copy of Windows on new devices as a base licence because OVS is classed as an upgrade – most schools buy Windows Home but Microsoft are currently running a scheme called Shape The Future which gives additional discounts.

 

b)

This is an additional licence. It covers up to 16 cores and up to 2 vm's. If you have more vm's you need to 'stack' Standard licences ie 4 vm's, 2 licences or 6 vm's 3 licences. Or you can have a DataCentre licence which allows unlimited vm's.

 

Give me a shout if you need more information.

 

John Levis | Software and Solutions Specialist | VeryPC

Tel: 0114 321 8609

very-pc.co.uk

[email protected]

[minimoo]

Hi @rjf2019

If you licence Office Pro, you qualify for free Office 365 for staff and pupil’s personal use

 

But not office 365 as a client on school devices? i.e. schools should use full office 2016/2019 in school. Staff/pupils can use o365 client for personal use

[kennysarmy]

Hi @rjf2019

 

 

b)

This is an additional licence. It covers up to 16 cores and up to 2 vm's. If you have more vm's you need to 'stack' Standard licences ie 4 vm's, 2 licences or 6 vm's 3 licences. Or you can have a DataCentre licence which allows unlimited vm's.

 

Give me a shout if you need more information.

 

John Levis | Software and Solutions Specialist | VeryPC

Tel: 0114 321 8609

very-pc.co.uk

[email protected]

 

Hi,

 

I'm struggling to understand b) if I'm honest.

 

I have two Physical Hosts - ProLiant DL380 Gen9's.

vSphere information is:

12 CPUs

2 processor sockets

6 cores per socket

24 logical processors

 

I then have the following VM's

 

Can you help me understand which licences I require for SQL and Server licences?

 

Many thanks.

[localzuk]

Is that spec per physical host? If so, you would need 3 licenses for the first host, and 4 for the second, to cover 6 and 8 VMs each.

 

For SQL server, this depends how you're licensing it. We use Server+CAL licenses here. However, you seem to have a lot of copies of SQL server running - what are they all for? I tend to concentrate my SQL setup - so have an SQL server or 2, with all the different instances installed, and all the systems that use it pointed at them.

[Tefters]

Pretty simple!

 

You have 2 physical hosts with around 6 or more vm’s on each so you either need a Datacenter license or 3x standard licenses as a standard license covers 2 VM’s + host, whichever of those 2 options is cheapest however if you want to stand up further VM’s then datacenter would be your better option.

EDIT - Should of added those license numbers are per host so you would need to x2.

 

*Technical note - You then need to change product code for your vm’s by chosen method (KMS, MAK or AD - Personally I would setup AD for ease and efficiency) and change edition.

 

As for SQL...

 

You need to identify out of those SQL installs which are full SQL and which are express. VEEAM is a good example of being express.

Also curious why you have SQL installed on a file server but I digress...

 

Full SQL needs licensing, express is free.

 

If you are running multiple full SQL installs you might want to consider consolidating DB’s and connections to 1 install to save on licensing as SQL licensing is expenses and based on socket or core count.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Tefters

[kennysarmy]

Pretty simple!

 

You have 2 physical hosts with around 6 or more vm’s on each so you either need a Datacenter license or 3x standard licenses as a standard license covers 2 VM’s + host, whichever of those 2 options is cheapest however if you want to stand up further VM’s then datacenter would be your better option.

EDIT - Should of added those license numbers are per host so you would need to x2.

 

*Technical note - You then need to change product code for your vm’s by chosen method (KMS, MAK or AD - Personally I would setup AD for ease and efficiency) and change edition.

 

As for SQL...

 

You need to identify out of those SQL installs which are full SQL and which are express. VEEAM is a good example of being express.

Also curious why you have SQL installed on a file server but I digress...

 

Full SQL needs licensing, express is free.

 

If you are running multiple full SQL installs you might want to consider consolidating DB’s and connections to 1 install to save on licensing as SQL licensing is expenses and based on socket or core count.

 

Cheers - you were right, some were just EXPRESS.

 

Full SQL is just on two servers!

[kennysarmy]

Pretty simple!

 

You have 2 physical hosts with around 6 or more vm’s on each so you either need a Datacenter license or 3x standard licenses as a standard license covers 2 VM’s + host, whichever of those 2 options is cheapest however if you want to stand up further VM’s then datacenter would be your better option.

EDIT - Should of added those license numbers are per host so you would need to x2.

 

*Technical note - You then need to change product code for your vm’s by chosen method (KMS, MAK or AD - Personally I would setup AD for ease and efficiency) and change edition.

 

As for SQL...

 

You need to identify out of those SQL installs which are full SQL and which are express. VEEAM is a good example of being express.

Also curious why you have SQL installed on a file server but I digress...

 

Full SQL needs licensing, express is free.

 

If you are running multiple full SQL installs you might want to consider consolidating DB’s and connections to 1 install to save on licensing as SQL licensing is expenses and based on socket or core count.

 

So to clarify on the Server licences.

 

Either Datacenter on each host?

 

OR

 

Standard licence x 3 on each host?

 

Our quote has these line items:

WinSvrDCCore ALNG LicSAPk OLV 16Lic F 1Y Acdmc AP CoreLic - £255.23 = £765.69

WinSvrSTDCore ALNG LicSAPk OLV 16Lic F 1Y Acdmc AP CoreLic - £36.54 = £73.08

 

I'm guessing they are what you are suggesting?

[localzuk]

Exactly, yeah. A datacenter license covers unlimited VMs.

[Tefters]

Cheers - you were right, some were just EXPRESS.

 

Full SQL is just on two servers!

 

What are your 2 SQL installs? Can these DB's be consolidated to 1 server to save an SQL license? 1 is obviously SIMS.

And is that KMS an actual VM just for KMS licensing???

Edited May 9, 2019 by Tefters

[kennysarmy]

What are your 2 SQL installs? Can these DB's be consolidated to 1 server to save an SQL license? 1 is obviously SIMS.

And is that KMS an actual VM just for KMS licensing???

 

Hi,

 

One SQL is for SIMS.

One SQL is for our finance package.

 

I'd rather keep these separate, however our reseller has queried my logic in that we only need two licences!

 

.... from my reckoning you still need the 4 x SQL 2 Core licenses (based on the fact the minimum you can purchase for any single install is 2 x 2 Core and you effectively need 2 x this ?

 

What does this mean?

[Tefters]

So you have 2 installs you need to cover.

You show CPU's but in this case (SQL licenses) we need to know number of cores.

 

I can see your SIMS server has 4 CPU's, how many cores does each CPU have allocated? I'm guessing your other finance server is Chester? but the same applies, need to know how many cores are allocated per CPU.

[kennysarmy]

So you have 2 installs you need to cover.

You show CPU's but in this case (SQL licenses) we need to know number of cores.

 

I can see your SIMS server has 4 CPU's, how many cores does each CPU have allocated? I'm guessing your other finance server is Chester? but the same applies, need to know how many cores are allocated per CPU.

 

For SIMS : 2 virtual sockets : 2 cores per sockets : total number of cores 4

 

For FS02-v : 2 virtual sockets : 1 cores per sockets : total number of cores 2

 

Does that help?

 

Many thanks.

[Tefters]

For SIMS : 2 virtual sockets : 2 cores per sockets : total number of cores 4

 

For FS02-v : 2 virtual sockets : 1 cores per sockets : total number of cores 2

 

Does that help?

 

Many thanks.

 

Perfect!

 

So you need 6 cores total and the SQL licenses come in bundles of 2 so essentially you need 3 SKU line items/licenses if that makes sense. However... Going by Microsoft gumf nowadays they say you need a minimum of 4 core licenses per physical processor/socket and you have 2 CPU's in you server right? If so I believe you would need to order 8 core licenses or in the licensing retail world 4 SKU items (packs of 2) even though technically you only have 6 cores allocated.

 

I would double check that with a licensing retailer but I believe that's how it works now.

 

Technically you are running the VM's on 2 separate hosts so if you go by Microsoft licensing documentation as I know it by the line than you would need 16 core licenses or 8 SKU items due to the minimum of 4 core licenses per CPU/Socket but I don't think Microsoft would mind or bother about that

 

Also as an advisory to keep your licensing costs down, if you are not planning on standing up anymore VM's in the next year and that server you have called KMS is purely for KMS licensing than I would move over to Active Directory activation or move your KMS licensing to another server and remove that one as it would bring you into the 6 VM's per host range meaning if you order standard server licenses you would only need 6 instead in total across the 2 hosts. Moving KMS is a simple process and will save you some pennies.

Edited May 9, 2019 by Tefters

[kennysarmy]

Perfect!

 

So you need 6 cores total and the SQL licenses come in bundles of 2 so essentially you need 3 SKU line items/licenses if that makes sense. However... Going by Microsoft gumf nowadays they say you need a minimum of 4 core licenses per physical processor/socket and you have 2 CPU's in you server right? If so I believe you would need to order 8 core licenses or in the licensing retail world 4 SKU items (packs of 2) even though technically you only have 6 cores allocated.

 

I would double check that with a licensing retailer but I believe that's how it works now.

 

Technically you are running the VM's on 2 separate hosts so if you go by Microsoft licensing documentation as I know it by the line than you would need 16 core licenses or 8 SKU items due to the minimum of 4 core licenses per CPU/Socket but I don't think Microsoft would mind or bother about that

 

Also as an advisory to keep your licensing costs down, if you are not planning on standing up anymore VM's in the next year and that server you have called KMS is purely for KMS licensing than I would move over to Active Directory activation or move your KMS licensing to another server and remove that one as it would bring you into the 6 VM's per host range meaning if you order standard server licenses you would only need 6 instead in total across the 2 hosts. Moving KMS is a simple process and will save you some pennies.

 

Cheers - think I'm starting to understand

 

And yes KMS to AD activation is something we are planning to do in the summer.

 

Thanks for your help - appreciated.

[localzuk]

Just an FYI - I nearly always find SQL licensing is cheaper done as "Server + CAL" licensing instead of socket/core based licensing. So, you'd pay for 2 server licenses and then CALs up to your FTE, and it'd cover your SQL VMs regardless of cores/sockets.