dgsmith Posted July 2, 2009 Posted July 2, 2009 We're looking to buy a budget server very shortly and are planning to run Windows Server 2008 on it (looking at web edition as it's cheaper and sufficient for our needs), though we are planning to pay the full OEM price. Does, or can, our school agreement cover us for this, either currently in our annual cost or additionally at a cheaper cost compared to paying for the OEM version? There are alot of topics here about schools agreement for desktops but no discussion seems to go as far as licencing server products, either for new servers or upgrading the OS on existing servers. Can someone clarify or point me in the direction of some literature for this?
SYNACK Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Assuming that it is like our schools agreement you should talk to your licensing provider. With ours we pay a set, small fee anually for each server license ($100NZD Win 2k8 Standard). These licenses cover you for the latest version of a product for the whole year so as long as we are still liscenced when 2k8 R2 comes out we can put it on at no extra cost. With the server products there is no requirement for an OEM one on the box like with client OS software so it is vastly cheaper for us to do it through the aggreement.
Kitkatninja Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Contact the company that you buy your MS licensing thru. We pay under £80 per year for the Enterprise edition of MS Server (with 2008, it allows us to run up to 4 VM without having to buy another licence ) You can see here for an example of prices. -Ken
dhicks Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Can someone clarify or point me in the direction of some literature for this? Simply contact your MS reseller to discuss educational pricing. I think a standard edition of Windows Server cost us around £100, one-off price, not per year or anything. I think Windows Enterprise was around £300 at educational pricing. -- David Hicks
DMcCoy Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 We're looking to buy a budget server very shortly and are planning to run Windows Server 2008 on it (looking at web edition as it's cheaper and sufficient for our needs), though we are planning to pay the full OEM price. Does, or can, our school agreement cover us for this, either currently in our annual cost or additionally at a cheaper cost compared to paying for the OEM version? There are alot of topics here about schools agreement for desktops but no discussion seems to go as far as licencing server products, either for new servers or upgrading the OS on existing servers. Can someone clarify or point me in the direction of some literature for this? Minimum points to join the scheme could be an issue. 300 is 20 copies of server standard or 10 enterprise. For just servers under SA I really just use academic select instead, although datacenter is well priced under SA (per cpu though).
dgsmith Posted July 3, 2009 Author Posted July 3, 2009 (edited) Standard edition for £100? Seems too good to be true! I was even pleasently surprised at how cheap the web edition was per year from pugh, compared to buying outright an OEM copy. DMcCoy, i'm not sure i'm following you exactly. Are you saying we may not be eligible if we don't have enough points (would that be how many machines we have x eligible software)? We have other servers but the licence for that we bought outright, we just wanted to see if we can get a licence in this instance at a lesser cost. Could you be a bit more specific? Edited July 3, 2009 by dgsmith
DMcCoy Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Standard edition for £100? Seems too good to be true! I was even pleasently surprised at how cheap the web edition was per year from pugh, compared to buying outright an OEM copy. DMcCoy, i'm sure i'm following you exactly. Are you saying we may not be eligible if we don't have enough points (would that be how many machines we have x eligible software)? We have other servers but the licence for that we bought outright, we just wanted to see if we can get a licence in this instance at a lesser cost. Could you be a bit more specific? There is a minimum order of 300 points for schools agreement (usually this is 100 machines as MS Desktop school license includes Windows upgrade (1 point), Core CAL (1 point) and Office (1 point). I'm using Datacenter licenses at around £70 per cpu to allow unlimited virtualisation rights (Windows server has license restrictions when doing live migrations).
dhicks Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Standard edition for £100? Yes. Honest :-) -- David Hicks
ArchersIT Posted July 3, 2009 Posted July 3, 2009 Simply contact your MS reseller to discuss educational pricing. I think a standard edition of Windows Server cost us around £100, one-off price, not per year or anything. I think Windows Enterprise was around £300 at educational pricing. -- David Hicks Hmm - the quote on my desk for Windows 2008 enterprise is less than £200 (one-off rather than per year pricing). I had informal pricing on standard at approx 1/3 of this. I rang Civica - home - they would only deal with me through the County - but were giving this kind of pricing. I also tried ramesys - but I know some on here do not like them. The key thing is not to buy retail (even OEM retail) but to contact an approved education supplier (the URL to find them is on another thread that I have lost for the moment) and buy an education licence. HTH Cheers Jonathan
dgsmith Posted July 6, 2009 Author Posted July 6, 2009 Thanks for the replies guys. Seems we can certainly benefit getting the OS through our Microsoft SA supplier (after querying, we can get Windows Server 2008 standard for 75% the cost of Server 2008 web edition OEM, outright purchase)! Annual prices are very good too, so glad I asked for your advice. Much appreciated!
Theblacksheep Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 I'm using Datacenter licenses at around £70 per cpu to allow unlimited virtualisation rights (Windows server has license restrictions when doing live migrations). I've come across the activation number limit today... created lots of test VMs early on and justed deleted the shortly after, hit the 50 limit today when trying to active some proper servers. After an hour on the phone to 5 different MS people through 5 different phone numbers they eventually said I can only request more by email and it takes 3-4 business days. GRRRR
DMcCoy Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 I've come across the activation number limit today... created lots of test VMs early on and justed deleted the shortly after, hit the 50 limit today when trying to active some proper servers. After an hour on the phone to 5 different MS people through 5 different phone numbers they eventually said I can only request more by email and it takes 3-4 business days. GRRRR MAK keys is not the issue, the problem is if you move a Windows license within six months of the original assignment to the original physical machine it counts as two licenses. So for 6 blades running a single instance of a windows server could need 6 licenses to migrate it to any other blade whenever you wanted. Datacenter avoids all these problems with unlimited virtualisation rights, I still have a limited number of MAK keys for it.
Theblacksheep Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) MAK keys is not the issue, the problem is if you move a Windows license within six months of the original assignment to the original physical machine it counts as two licenses. So for 6 blades running a single instance of a windows server could need 6 licenses to migrate it to any other blade whenever you wanted. Datacenter avoids all these problems with unlimited virtualisation rights, I still have a limited number of MAK keys for it. I have 8 2008DC lic's for 4 2-core blades (ESX4), the lics have never been moved. 49/50 MAK keys used. I dont understand! Edited July 6, 2009 by Theblacksheep
Busybub Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 There is a minimum order of 300 points for schools agreement (usually this is 100 machines as MS Desktop school license includes Windows upgrade (1 point), Core CAL (1 point) and Office (1 point). Eh? Two of my sites have between 75-80 workstations, with Servers under Select licensing. ???
Busybub Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 Yes. Honest :-) -- David Hicks Have prices gone up recently? Think we paid 78+VAT for ours...
DMcCoy Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 I have 8 2008DC lic's for 4 2-core blades (ESX4), the lics have never been moved. 49/50 MAK keys used. I dont understand! It's not a software limit, it's a license term limitation. MAK keys just get used up each time you activate, thats the only way to use them up. What I was alluding to was this: http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/C/A/FCAB58A9-CCAD-4E0A-A673-88A5EE74E2CC/Microsoft_Server_Products_Virtual_Environs-VL_Brief-Jan_09.docx Microsoft waived the restriction on a number of application licenses, such as exchange, sql etc but not the OS. You have to assign the base license to a physical box, vmotion (or equivalent, such cold migration) within 90 days and you need another OS license. If you don't plan on migrating any machines (HA/balancing included) within 90 days then there is no problem. If you do plan on migrating more frequently then with anything other than datacenter you get stuck. I have around 15 copies of virtual windows running, to vmotion freely at will I need either enough datacenter cpu license or 90 windows server license (15 for each host).
DMcCoy Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 Eh? Two of my sites have between 75-80 workstations, with Servers under Select licensing. ??? 300 points is for Schools Agreement. Which can be made up by clients/servers, if you only started with client license then the minimum number would roughtly be 100 unless you made additional choices for fewer machines (like adding project, so 75 machines etc). As long as you get to that 300 it doesn't matter how many clients, although there is a limit to how many products are available.
Theblacksheep Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 It's not a software limit, it's a license term limitation. MAK keys just get used up each time you activate, thats the only way to use them up. What I was alluding to was this: http://download.microsoft.com/download/F/C/A/FCAB58A9-CCAD-4E0A-A673-88A5EE74E2CC/Microsoft_Server_Products_Virtual_Environs-VL_Brief-Jan_09.docx Microsoft waived the restriction on a number of application licenses, such as exchange, sql etc but not the OS. You have to assign the base license to a physical box, vmotion (or equivalent, such cold migration) within 90 days and you need another OS license. If you don't plan on migrating any machines (HA/balancing included) within 90 days then there is no problem. If you do plan on migrating more frequently then with anything other than datacenter you get stuck. I have around 15 copies of virtual windows running, to vmotion freely at will I need either enough datacenter cpu license or 90 windows server license (15 for each host). Oh I see... I'm good on the licences, simelar amounts of VMs to you too.... just ran out activations and come across an annoying 4 day MS email system despite being told I can just call and request more.
Oops_my_bad Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 Contact the company that you buy your MS licensing thru. We pay under £80 per year for the Enterprise edition of MS Server (with 2008, it allows us to run up to 4 VM without having to buy another licence ) You can see here for an example of prices. -Ken Hi Ken, Do you know if you would you still be compliant if say you wanted to run 7 VMs on a single physical host but had the paperwork for 2x Enterprise licences? I know there is datacentre for unlimited VMs but I think this was stupidly expensive last time I checked..
Busybub Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 300 points is for Schools Agreement. Which can be made up by clients/servers, if you only started with client license then the minimum number would roughtly be 100 unless you made additional choices for fewer machines (like adding project, so 75 machines etc). As long as you get to that 300 it doesn't matter how many clients, although there is a limit to how many products are available. Strange! Never had more than 80 computers, been on School Agreement for the last 4. Never had anything other than XP, Office, and Desktop CALs. Servers have never been on SA.... Microsoft have never moaned (other than when payment is overdue) Oh well, Will worry about it if they ever kick up a stink!!!
Theblacksheep Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 (edited) I know there is datacentre for unlimited VMs but I think this was stupidly expensive last time I checked.. Datacenter is under £150, but licenced per cpu... Edited July 6, 2009 by Theblacksheep
Oops_my_bad Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 Datacenter is under £150, but licenced per cpu... Is that bought outright or under lease/schools agreement? We have 8 cores to licence...
Soulfish Posted July 6, 2009 Posted July 6, 2009 Is that bought outright or under lease/schools agreement? We have 8 cores to licence... Your 8 cores are likely 2 CPUs. With Datacenter you're licensing the number of sockets not the number of cores . 1
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