[windows software] EES and RDP Cal's

[glennda]

With the new EES program and Terminal Server Cal's I'm guessing now its essentially Unlimited user cal's? So I can setup an Terminal Server in school that students can connect to from there own personal devices?

 

previously it would have been limited to the number of cal's purchased but now its on Staff numbers would the above work?

 

Or would I need an External Connector License (although these machines will be in school)?

 

Just thinking I can setup for our Sixth Formers to have RDP access to a Terminal Server from there own personal Devices in the common room.

[marksams]

Hi glennda, the number of Terminal Services Client Access Licenses (now purchased as Remote Desktop Services CALs) will be aligned to the your FTE count and is valid for all students connecting from their personal devices. There is no need to purchase an external connector license.

 

It is also perfectly valid to transition between per-device CALs to per-User CALs when Software Assurance comes up for renewal, and the transition to EES facilitates this. You can find confirmation that all connections to school systems by students (and parents) are now licensed by the FTE count of CALs that you have purchased at Microsoft UK Education - Software Licensing - Licences for Schools

 

There are a couple of license grants that mean you don’t need any external connector licenses for parents, prospective students, alumni (student and faculty/staff) or collaborating academic or government institutions...

 

"In support of the government’s Online Reporting policy and targets, Microsoft has extended the coverage of student licences in appropriate circumstances to cover their parents/guardians.

Under Select Licence, Open Licence and School Agreement and Enrolment for Education Solutions a CAL is no longer required for the parent(s) or legal guardian(s) of licensed student users."

Download the free licence grant document

 

"Additionally, for certain CAL options under the School Agreement and Enrolment for Education Solutions, External Connector Licences are now included for prospective students, alumni, and students and faculty of collaborating institutions."

Download the free licence grant document

[glennda]

That's Excellent thanks!

[Cache]

Are you 100% that RDS CALS purchase under an FTE count also cover student own devices?

 

The reason I'm asking is over the next year we'll be approaching a matching number of RDS owned CALs compared to our EES FTE count, but that doesn't take into account student owned devices which we don't do now because of the CAL cost. That Licence Document grant you link to mentions the purchase of Student CALs which are (were) a seperate purcahse to your FTE total and were based on your student total, or that's what I was lead to believe?

[marksams]

Hi Cache, yes (I checked with Microsoft some time ago), and I just checked with Microsoft again to be 110% sure. The FTE count of CALs assumes 'per user' CALs for the organisation, not 'per device', so it doesn't matter which devices, or how many devices, students and teachers use.

 

More info:

 

There are 8-10 different SKUs for RDS CALs depending on whether the CALs are purchased according to the FTE count ('enterprise-wide/Ent') or department (termed 'additional product/AP'), different price bands (+/- 1000 FTEs) and 'per user'/'per device'. Just make sure the CALs you purchase are enterprise-wide per user CALs! 'Ent' CALs are always cheaper then 'AP' CALs as you buy a larger amount re: FTE count.

 

Note: It may make sense to purchase 'per device' 'AP' CALs if you are only licensing a department, and you have more users than devices within that department, e.g. they share a small number of PCs with access to RDS.

 

There is of course the 'student option' under EES which you can take advantage of to provide software on student-owned laptops if you wish. I found in an old spreadsheet (Nov 2011) that is was possible to purchase RDS CALs as a student option - I challenged Microsoft on this, but they couldn't find the SKUs in their system, so we assumed they have been removed and agreed they were irrelevent anyway.

[Cache]

Wow, in that case I can push forward with a lot more things then I'd hoped to then.

 

I was always working on the assumption that it covered staff and if you assumed a per device model then you were fine, this puts a different slant on it.

 

Thanks for the reply.

[FN-GM]

Sorry to sound thick, but licensing is something that i struggle with. If you have EES in plain english what is the extra benefit please?

 

Sorry to sound to dumb

[sted]

Sorry to sound thick, but licensing is something that i struggle with. If you have EES in plain english what is the extra benefit please?

 

Sorry to sound to dumb

 

you can install win7 and / or office 2010 on any equipment owned by the school and its covered

[FN-GM]

Noooo sorry i should have said i mean relating to RDS CALs

[balticstar]

Slighlty confused....

 

Beginning of 2011 we were told that RDS Cals were not included in the EES. Do we have to buy them separately (similar to Visio, Project etc) - if so how much are people paying for it?

[Cache]

Noooo sorry i should have said i mean relating to RDS CALs

 

Well this is why I questioned it.

 

I was under the impression if you could licence your RDS CALs in the same way, so if you had more RDS Clients then staff, then it might work out a cheaper way to licence them. I also thought that if you were to licence students devices for RDS then you would purchase the student option.

 

What @marksams is saying, if I've got it correct, is if you licence your RDS CALs under the EES agreement and then allowed students to bring in their own devices because EES can cover either per user or per device licences and covers the entire establishment, if you were to assume per user rights, this would cover staff and students, allowing students to use their own devices without any additional licencing requirement. So in our case, for our 55 FTE, if we were to do this, the 55 RDS EES licences we purchased would cover all our staff and all students for the use of any RDS server. Also, under the two Microsoft grants he posted, in theory it would cover external use also because you have purchased user CALs for everyone.

 

Slighlty confused....

 

Beginning of 2011 we were told that RDS Cals were not included in the EES. Do we have to buy them separately (similar to Visio, Project etc) - if so how much are people paying for it?

 

It isn't included in the Core CAL pack or the education desktop pack, but there isn't anything to stop you licence it similar to Viso as a seperate addon to your EES agreement, but I have no idea on price.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Cache

[FN-GM]

ah i see, so you can give every student an RDS CAL but you dont have to purchase one for them all? Under EES you would purchase a licence for every staff member if i am right?

 

Thanks

[Cache]

ah i see, so you can give every student an RDS CAL but you dont have to purchase one for them all? Under EES you would purchase a licence for every staff member if i am right?

 

Thanks

 

I think so (that's how I understand it now)

[alttab]

 

Or would I need an External Connector License (although these machines will be in school)?

 

 

maybe someone could clarify, but i thought such external connector licenses applied in situations where you wanted to give external

users ie non-employees like customers, b2b partners, contractors and the like secure access to services that you intend to publish. NOT actual employees/staff of your org accessing services from outside the firewall, ie from home ?

 

or does external in the case of the external connector license (whether in or out of the scope of this discussion regarding EES licensing)

for rds literally mean access by ANY user accessing the service when accessible over the web i.e via some sort of SSL gateway or reverse proxy manner over the web, like when a sharepoint intranet or terminal services is made 'externally' available ?

[MYK-IT]

I'm still not 100% clear and confident about RDS and OVS-ES (or ESS)

 

When I have queried regarding RDS CALS for future use with Remote Apps etc, I was advised that:

 

Each member of Staff (i.e. FTE count) would require 6VC-01518 (RDS User CAL) and if we opened it up to our Students, each would require 6VC-01521 (RDS User CAL for Students Only).

This is in addition to the Desktop Education with Enterprise CAL (OVS-ES/ESS) Agreement.

 

Why are things so difficult getting clarification?

[saundersmatt]

With you here. I've been advised similarly.

Each person needing access to RDS would need an RDS User CAL. If you get RDS User CALs * FTE Count this would cover all staff and students; but only for internal user (i.e. on site). External use would require additional RDS User CALs, or an external connector license (whichever is more cost effective).

 

Confused is an understatement.

[marksams]

Hi all, I'm seeking further written clarification on this topic after being contacted by another Microsoft department, and I'll report back here with full details in the next day or two!

[MYK-IT]

I was told that RDS User CAL x FTE Count would only cover Staff and I would have to add the Student Licences on for them to access.

[MYK-IT]

Hi all, I'm seeking further written clarification on this topic after being contacted by another Microsoft department, and I'll report back here with full details in the next day or two!

 

 

That would be most appreciated.

Clarification of what will happen with SCVMM and SCDPM on OVS-ES/ESS when System Centre 2012 is released would also be most appreciated.

All I know is that current versions of SCVMM and SCDPM will not available with Software Assurance from 1st February 2012, and I want to get our OVS-ES setup up pronto.

[Millgate]

I've got a PDF that should answer your questions @MYK-IT, i'll email it you know. I can't seem to attach it

[Ex-MGSTech]

RDP CAL's arn't included in the core CAL pack though? at £10 is each why would you include them in your EES and pay this each year when for that amount you can buy perpetual?

 

Steve

[saundersmatt]

They aren't included in the Core CAL suite, no. But they're not £10 more like £2. Also, as port of EES they're covered by software assurance.

 

Matt

[MYK-IT]

According to the document sent by Millgate; (and I've read it correctly!)

 

A current SCVMM with SA would get 1x System Centre 2012 Datacentre Server ML

and a current SCDPM with SA would get System Centre 2012 Client Management Suite Client ML license for each qualifying product Client ML

 

erm, I assume that would mean we would get the new revisions as part of the SA at no extra cost/additional licenses

[Millgate]

That documents comes straight from Microsoft themselves so it will be right (assuming they know their own products)

[marksams]

Well after a couple of emails and a long conversation with a Microsoft representative, we reached the following conclusion about RDS CALs:

 

There are a couple of ways to be legally covered by Microsoft RDS CALs, and the EES program rules/available SKUs do not resolve the ambiguity.

 

In the original post in the thread, glennda asks for the correct way to license RDS/remote desktop connections from sixth formers with their own laptops. It was assumed RDS was already an organisation-wide requirement.

 

Option 1 – more expensive:

Buy part code 6VC-01516 for your FTE Count – This is an enterprise-wide per device RDS CAL for organisations with less than 1000 user FTEs. Per device CALs assume that all shared PCs within the organisation are licensed for RDS connections.

 

Because you purchased per-device CALs for all school PCs, you now need to purchase additional CALs for either your students (per user) or their student devices (per device). There is still a further decision about whether to choose ‘Additional Product’ CALs (i.e. department CALs) or Student CALs.

 

As the students are extremely unlikely to share their own laptops, and may have more than one device, it makes sense to license the students per-user.

 

At this point it’s important to note that the ‘Student Option’ under EES has qualifying requirements such as a ‘student FTE’ count of 5 or more, and that you must license a desktop platform product according to your ‘student FTE’ count. However, I double-checked with Microsoft that you do not need to meet these requirements in this example. The ‘Student Option’ is designed for desktop platform products that can be used at home and in school and is not a pre-requisite to purchasing a student-specific CAL for RDS.

 

The detail is important because although per device/per user CALs are the same cost, the student-specific CALs (per device or per user) are approx. two thirds cheaper than ‘Additional Product’ CALs and nearly 50% cheaper than ‘Enterprise-wide’ CALs.

 

Therefore (in this example) in addition to 6VC-01516 - enterprise-wide per device RDS CALs, it make sense to purchase 6VC-01521 - Student per user RDS CALs for the sixth formers.

 

Option 2 – less expensive:

 

Buy part code 6VC-01518 for your FTE Count – This is an enterprise-wide per user RDS CAL for organisations with less than 1000 user FTEs. Per user CALs assume that all users (including teachers and students) within the organisation are licensed for RDS connections.

 

Note – there is no price difference between per user or per-device CALs.

 

Further information: Here is excerpt from the EES program guide which may help guide your decision:

 

Your students can also use the licensed product on institution-owned or leased devices located in classrooms or open access labs within your defined organization. To license your students to run products on a device the student either personally owns or is institution-owned and is assigned to an individual student for their exclusive use, you may enroll in the Student Option (see The Student Option).

 

It seems to me that the above statement applies to device-based licensing, and assumes installation of desktop platform products onto student devices. There was no objection from the Microsoft representative I spoke to about the per-user option.