Are A3 CALs really for Azure IAAS Only?

[itskdog]

I work in a primary school, and we're working with our existing network support provider on getting a quote for to set us up with M365 A3 (via NCE, moving from our existing OVS-ES) & Intune/AutoPilot next year, but still need one server onsite for PaperCut (due to the pesky 20 connections max on client editions of Windows), as RISO don't support anything else right now for print management/quotas, and we don't want to be guinea pigs for their DirectPrint.io integration they're working on that may or may not be ready by September.

 

As only staff would be printing, we were hoping that the built-in CALs in A3 would be sufficient (everything I've found so far just says "Windows Server CAL Rights"), but we have been informed that the M365 CALs only apply to servers in Azure? "Windows server CAL's are only included when deploying IAAS servers (Azure hosted)."

 

Does anyone have experience with this, as I can't find any evidence to confirm or deny this claim, and navigating the Microsoft Terms website is impossible to locate this. If someone can point me in the right direction to where this is documented either way, that would be great.

Edited December 11, 2024 by itskdog

[Steve21]

Nope, whoever said that is totally wrong

 

Azure IAAS doesn’t require cals for a start because it’s built into the pricing of the per-minute pricing

 

Microsoft A3 for staff (not office A3) includes cals for Windows server: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-platform-service-description/microsoft-365-education

 

Scroll right to the bottom and look at that last table

 

Steve

[itskdog]

I thought that was the case too, but was told this by a technical lead at a major school network installer in the UK who is quoting the work for us, saying they needed to add OVS-Core CALs like we currently do as it's an on-prem server. I've got a meeting with them next week so I'll bring it up then and see what they say.

 

I'm not the one who makes the decisions on which company we go with, unfortunately, but the Network Manager has used them lots in the past both here and at previous schools, but while the network support seems to have improved of late, the sales side seems a lot pricier than I would expect, especially for such a large company. Even just the licences for M365 are quite a bit higher than I've seen on the few companies that make their prices public, though at least that can be changed easily in the future once the install has been completed.

[ITGuyNW]

Speak to someone else like Phoenix who will be able to confirm in writing what Steve21 says

[itskdog]

Just an update after the meeting I had which cleared up what they were getting at - what they were referring to is that we would need to keep our existing OVS-ES agreement in order to continue licencing Windows Server, and the only way to do that would be to switch from the full Desktop Pack to the Core CAL Suite to keep the OVS-ES agreement as Windows Server is an additional product that's added on top of an existing agreement.

 

When we follow up with our OVS-ES provider, we will ask them in more detail, but that's still a year away.