Richfrombechtle

Hi, Unless you are also providing access to these sytems to people that do not work for you, then no External Connector is needed at all. Cheers Rich

When it comes to External Connectors, Microsoft state: "An external user is a person who is not an employee, or similar personnel of the company or its affiliates, and is not someone to whom you provide hosted services using the server software." (bold mine) For employees, you are required to purchase CALs for them to access the network. TS CALs are additional to Windows server CALs so you will need: 1 x Windows Server CAL AND 1 x Terminal Server CAL for each staff member who will be using the TS services. So initially 25 of each and then a further 30-50 for the next stage and so on. From a price point of view, I'd recommend a Schools Agreement for cost effectiveness, with a Windows Server CAL being around £1.2 and a TS CAL approx £3.00 per year. Hope that helps. Cheers Rich

The rule is: Number of Virtual CPU's / Number of Physical cores = No. of CPU licences (rounded up) If Hyper Threading is on then it becomes: Number of Virtual CPU's / Number of threads = No. of CPU licences (rounded up) Cheers Rich

When it comes to cost, a Schools Agreement is, in most cases, the cheapest/most cost effective way to licence the software. Although it is non-perpetual, if you upgrade on a 3-5 year basis, the TCO is lower than with perpetual licences...even Academic Select.

Based on this month's Open licence pricing, a processor licence of Datacenter is around £38 more than a server licence of Enterprise. This means a total of 4 Enterprise licences are needed at a rough corporate cost of: £1871 x 4 = £7484 The alternative, buying 4 Datacenter processor licences, would be (again a rough corporate cost): £1908 x 4 = £7632 so £148 more expensive. However, as soon as you need to run 1 more VM (to give a total of 9) Datacenter becomes cheaper. If you're running at up near 8 VM's on a single host, or 4 VM's on 2 hosts with Live Motion, it would be a much better idea to spend that little bit extra and future proof yourself. Otherwise, as your virtual estate expands it will keep costing more. Cheers Rich

Hi, One of the benefits of getting Windows Server Datacenter edition is that it gives unlimited virtualization rights on the physical host. You're right that it is licensed per socket. There's nothing extra that needs to be done in the way of activating this benefit or anything...you are simply free to create as many VM's as your hardware can handle :-) If you want to buy the perpetual licence as a one off, then Open Licensing (OLP) is the best way to do it. Any questions, let me know. Cheers Rich

Yep...I walked passed Hardenhuish the other day actually! Work's only about 10 mins away...

Currently, 40 x OLP Windows 7 Upgrades would cost around £4500 to a corporate end user. Once the promo ends this month, it will be around £5250. The Desktop Pack on a schools agreement is sub £30, but as Albertwt is from a corporate, that isn't available to him. Adding SA to OEM licences is a great way to keep costs down while giving yourself easier manageability, better asset tracking and access to many of the benefits I mentioned earlier. The grace period to add OEM depends on the licensing scheme you purchase it on; while most offer 90 days, Open business gives just 30. Discussions around the cost effectiveness and ROI of licensing can take many paths. Often, once you include the easier asset tracking, better asset tracking, end user training and more...licensing, overall, often offers better value. However, I realise that budgets are still tight and sometimes it does just come down to the figure on the page :-)

Hi, I'd be interested in getting involved to showcase some of the great MS technology that is currently available and also coming soon. Let me know if you need anything from me... Cheers Rich

Hi, You can't buy any licences on OVP without SA, only L+SA and SA are availalbe...not just L. That's why the site wouldn't accept it :-) Having SA gives many benefits depending which products you buy and in what quantities. These include: New Version Upgrades: Always be up to date with the latest technology E-Learning: For each Office Application/Windows Client/Server Licence, you get one licence for the applicable E-learning courses Training Vouchers: For every 50 licences you buy, you get 1 or 2 (depending on product) vouchers to put towards official MS training courses. *This isn't available to Edu customers though-it's corporate only* Windows 7 Enterprise: This gives many extra features including Bitlocker/Bitlocker to Go/Branch Cache/Direct Access/Federated Search/Applocker and more Access to MDOP: THe Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack is a great set of tools...see more here: Microsoft MDOP Software Ruminations You can also get Extended hotfix support, cold backup licences and more. These extra benefits can help make management and admin of the infrastructure (and users) much easier.

I'm in Chippenham, Wiltshire...but am actually a Notherner...

I'm @richfrombechtle

Hi Albert, There are a few different licensing schemes availalbe to corporates: Open (OLP): Perpetual licences with upfront payment woth SA available as an option. Minimum order of 5 licences to start an agreement. Open Value Subscription (OVS): Non perpetual subscription licences where SA is included as standard. Requires all machines to be covered with the licences. Open Value Perpetual (OVP): Perpetual licences with spread payments (over 3 years) with SA included as standard. Can be done "Company Wide" and "Non Company Wide"...minimum order of 5 licences to start an agreement. Any questions, let me know. Cheers Rich

They are also available on Schools Agreements. Cheers Rich

On Academic MS licensing programs, there are "Faculty" CALs that cover school owned machines and "Student" CALs that cover machines owned by students. Often used for giving them home access to school resources...it's probably this you saw referenced. Cheers Rich