Windows Licensing for Primary School - Moving to Cloud

[Alawil]

Looking for some clarification, we are a small primary school with around 300 children and ~40 staff equating to around 30 FTE under OVS.

 

Currently we have a traditional setup with onsite server, AD, print, etc. Licensing wise we have OVS agreement comprising of:

 

Windows Server Core *16

Desktop Edu Core *30

Remote Worker CAL *20

 

We are looking at going entirely cloud leveraging M365, SharePoint, Onedrive, direct print+Universal print (remote printing only for staff), Intune, AutoPilot, Connected Cache, Config Manager etc. We want to use MFA and conditional policies (access to Arbor, Sharepoint etc onsite does not require MFA but offsite it does)

 

From a licensing point of view it seems a bit of a minefield, questions:

 

1) If we went down the A3 route must we purchase A3 for every member of staff or does MS allow us to use A3 for say 20 users and A1 for the other 20 - we understand the A1 users will not get desktop apps?

2) If we were to mix A1 and A3 is it ok to then purchase P1 for the 20 staff that dont have A3 so they can use conditional access, password write-back etc?

3) If we went with A1/A3/P1 what if any issues would we get with Intune etc with the staff that only have A1?

4) If we went with 20* A3 would all our students be covered for 'student use benefit'?

5) How does EQU vs Lite User come into play here, for example is a teaching assistant who occasionally uses web based Word a lite user or EQU?

6) Does A3 provide the windows OS license for shared use or do we need to cover this separately?

7) If A3 does not cover the windows OS license any reason we should/cannot use the OEM license that came with the laptops?

8) Is it acceptable to eliminate our OVS agreement entirely and purchase a perpetual Windows Server license for the single entry level server we will need onsite for Connected Cache, Universal Print Connector, Sharp Onestop agent, etc - no plan to have AD?

 

 

All inputs and suggestions welcomed!

[johnlevis]

Hi @Alawil, here goes

 

1) If we went down the A3 route must we purchase A3 for every member of staff or does MS allow us to use A3 for say 20 users and A1 for the other 20 - we understand the A1 users will not get desktop apps? - It's a per user licence so you can have whichever combination works for you

2) If we were to mix A1 and A3 is it ok to then purchase P1 for the 20 staff that dont have A3 so they can use conditional access, password write-back etc? - as above

3) If we went with A1/A3/P1 what if any issues would we get with Intune etc with the staff that only have A1? - shouldn't be a problem, you'll just have to allocate the licences correctly to cover what they need

4) If we went with 20* A3 would all our students be covered for 'student use benefit'? - each Faculty M365 A3 qualifies you for 40 sudent licences

5) How does EQU vs Lite User come into play here, for example is a teaching assistant who occasionally uses web based Word a lite user or EQU? - Lite User is a term used in EES licencing, not OVS - OVS FTE is still worked out as computer users who work more than 200 hours per annum

6) Does A3 provide the windows OS license for shared use or do we need to cover this separately? - yes, covered but you need to set it up when you configure

7) If A3 does not cover the windows OS license any reason we should/cannot use the OEM license that came with the laptops? - If the devices came with a digital licence you can activate it for use with A3, if not you have to use a MAK key

8) Is it acceptable to eliminate our OVS agreement entirely and purchase a perpetual Windows Server license for the single entry level server we will need onsite for Connected Cache, Universal Print Connector, Sharp Onestop agent, etc - no plan to have AD? You'll still need an OVS for the cals, servers, RDS, etc. Your qualifying product will be the Core Cal Suite, or if all you need from that is server cals, you can buy a licence that works as a qualifying product, less than £30.

 

Bear in mind that at the moment, you can only do this at expiry of your current OVS, not mid-term renewal.

 

Give me a shout if you want to chat through this

 

John

[Alawil]

Hi, following up on this thread. We eventually opted for MS A3 CSP license for all staff members, this has worked well for the last year whilst staff got used to all things cloud :-)

 

Our renewal is coming up and if possible we would like to reduce our MS licensing costs.

 

We have ~40 staff, for simplicity sake lets say we have 20 teachers, 10 teaching assistants and 10 other staff members. We understand that the teachers and other staff (30 in total) need Windows, Intune, Desktop apps etc and thus MS A3 licenses are correct for them - they also tend to be 1 device one user.

 

All our devices have Dell Windows OEM licenses, we use 2FA/conditional policies and Intune.

 

In terms of the 10 teaching assistants, what options do we have?

 

1) Continue with A3 - approx. £65 each

2) Move to A1 (free) and add P1 and Intune for faculty separately - approx. £13 per user (assuming the windows OEM license is sufficient)

3) #2 above and Windows 11 Enterprise A3 for faculty - an additional ~£20, so ~£33 in total(assumes OEM license is not sufficient)

4) Move to A1 device based for ~4 of the laptops and have the teaching assistants use them instead of any device they find? - not sure of cost but license seems valid for 6 years?

5) #4 above and P1 for the teaching assistants as they use their own devices outside of school and need 2FA/conditional policies

6) Any other option?

 

Thank you for your inputs.

[XiJ]

Seems to me you’d be saving £350 (or even best best case £650) per year but losing out on features (security) and adding complexity to your license structure. Is it worth it?