Category Archives: Licensing
Microsoft year end is over, ah the joys of licensing!!!
For any Microsoft partner June has yet again been fun closing Microsoft licensing opportunities. For those of you with little day to day interaction with licensing I would always recommend you make use of the resources available online and work with a trusted partner. Mistakes can be very costly!!!
The following resources provide very useful information regarding Microsoft licensing. Being a challenging subject in its own right licensing and compliance requires customers are well informed and make the correct purchasing decisions. Microsoft provide a few gems as follows,
Firstly the licensing portal can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/ and should be the first port of call for all licensing queries.
Secondly the online Microsoft License Advisor http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/mla/default.aspx will easily find and choose the Microsoft Volume Licensing program that can best help your organisation, simplify license management, optimise your IT infrastructure, and get the most value for your IT investment.
Finally the following link http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/default.mspx provides more than just license information for mid size organisations and is also worthy of your time.
The joys of Microsoft software assurance
Nearing Microsoft financial year-end so of course a number of license agreements are being concluded due to a number of special promotional offers. Software assurance is often a topic of discussion during contract negotiations. I found out about a very useful chart via @EricLigman on twitter.
This chart includes descriptions and eligibility summaries for all Software Assurance benefits including New Product Versions, 24×7 Problem Resolution Support, Windows 7 Enterprise Edition, Deployment Planning and Training services amongst others.
Download it at http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=7b682d90-8f2a-474d-b46a-11d922fe44e1
Comparing the System Center Suite, with System Center Essentials 2010
Top post here from Willemjan van Laarhoven and many thanks for Microsoft’s Virtual Boy, Matt McSpirit, highlighting it exists because this certainly has become a great area of interest for customers. The System Center product familiy from Microsoft comprises of many products but often SMB customers ask me if the functionality System Center Essentials (SCE) is enough. With the impending release of SCE 2010 it is understandable why this is becoming a popular query.
As the System Center product family is extensive, it doesn’t make it particularly easy to choose which technologies apply where, and how to differentiate between each of them! Do you know your System Center Configuration Manager, from your System Center Operations Manager? How do these compare with System Center Essentials? Are they aimed at different customer sizes? If so, what are they? How do I license these technologies? Does System Center Essentials include Backup? If not, do I need Data Protection Manager too?
Well, something that can start to help you down that journey is a blog post by Willemjan van Laarhoven, which compares SCE 2010 with some of the larger, more fully fledged technologies like SCOM and SCCM. It’s not too long a post, but gives you enough info to get started, highlighting some key capabilities that you get in the full SCOM/SCCM/SCVMM, that you wouldn’t get in Essentials, but, at the end of the day, you may not need those capabilities, and SCE 2010 may be an ideal fit.
If you’re interested, take a look at the blog post, and while you’re at it, you may want to take a look at the revamped System Center site, for all the info on the different technologies.
Microsoft EBS, R.I.P.
Future Microsoft Windows Essential Business Server Development Discontinued – Information, FAQs, and more
Yesterday, Microsoft announced the decision to streamline the server product portfolio and that they will discontinue future development of Essential Business Server, effective June 30th, 2010. A few points about this announcement:
- Microsoft remains fully committed to small and medium-sized businesses and the Partners who serve them
- This decision not to ship future versions of EBS will not impact any other Windows Server products and solutions, including the next version of Windows Small Business Server (SBS)
- This decision not to ship future versions of EBS does not come lightly
- The technology capabilities many midsize businesses are turning to (such as virtualization, management, and cloud computing) are already available through other offerings, including: Windows Server 2008 R2, Microsoft System Center and the Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS)
- Microsoft are going to provide a limited offer (June 30, 2010 through December 31, 2010) for all EBS 2008 customers where they can get the individual component software from the EBS 2008 suite for free (local taxes, shipping and handling charges may apply)
- Customers with Software Assurance will be offered an open agreement to receive the license for many stand-alone products that would have been included in EBS 2010.
- Current EBS customers can look forward to a support cycle that holds true to the Microsoft five-year mainstream and five-year extended support lifecycle
- All service packs will also be supported according to lifecycle support
- Microsoft would like to sincerely thank everyone who provided feedback, participated in the development of, and/or used Windows Essential Business Server
So what does the mean for customers? Well not a lot in my opinion. The problem with Essential Business Server (EBS) is that most SMB customers can achieve what they need with versions of Small Business Server (SBS) or have invested in individual products and server virtualisation. Perhaps the gulf between both scenarios did not warrant the introduction of EBS in the middle. Knowledge of the product since launched is likely another reason for its demise, both within the customer and Microsoft partner communities. In all my time working for a Microsoft practise I have only ever discussed EBS with two customers, both favouring alternatives for investment (SBS did enough). In the Scotland partner community I only ever met one other professional who was tasked with deploying it, thinking about it he wasn’t smiling when he told me and I haven’t heard of him since!!!!. Farewell EBS…..
Microsoft forefront licensing suite
Microsoft Forefront protection products can be licensed individually as well as in comprehensive product suites. Microsoft offers Forefront security products in three different licensing suites to meet your IT protection needs.
- The Forefront Protection Suite is for customers who want the comprehensive security offered by the Forefront protection products. Learn more about Forefront Protection Suite.
- The Microsoft Enterprise Client Access License (CAL) Suite brings together 11 of the latest Microsoft products to provide your organization the newest innovations in compliance, real-time collaboration, security, communication, desktop management, and more. The Microsoft Enterprise CAL Suite provides an outstanding opportunity for customers to use their existing investments in the Microsoft core platform. The Enterprise CAL Suite includes the Forefront Protection Suite, as well as Active Directory Rights Management Services.
- The Exchange Enterprise CAL Suite is the best choice for enterprises looking for a security solution specifically for their Exchange environment. This offering includes Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server, Forefront Online Protection for Exchange, as well as other server CALs and technologies.
| Standalone Products | 1. Forefront Protection Suite | 2. Enterprise CAL Suite | 3. Exchange Enterprise CAL |
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| Forefront Client Security |
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| Forefront Protection 2010 for Exchange Server |
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| Forefront Security for SharePoint |
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| Forefront Security for Office Communications Server |
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| Forefront Online Protection for Exchange |
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| Other Server CALs and technologies |
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Windows 7 RC expiry
On March 1st, 2010 – Windows 7 RC pre-expiration shut downs begin. Are you one of those early adopters who just never got round to an RTM deployment? Well be warned!!!!
As of the start of March the Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) will start to shut down every two hours in preparation for its expiration on June 1, 2010. That means you will need to migrate your RC systems to an RTM version of Windows 7, or your previous operating system should you be mad!!!! Remember to back up all your data as either option will require a clean installation.
Snow and Microsoft Remote Desktop Services
Recently I have become amazed at the amount of organisations who do not have the fundamental infrastructure in place for supporting remote working. I wouldn’t want to quantify the cost for an organisation in lost labour as staff sit in traffic going nowhere, take time off for childcare needs as schools close or worse still end up dealing with an insurance claim because of a traffic accident in icy conditions. Wouldn’t you rather have employees being more productive and safer working from with full application and data access? Well the variety of options on offer from Microsoft are amazing, direct access being one solution I just could not live without. However what about the more traditional thin client access many organisations have deployed and upgraded over time?
Well interestingly I have seen a shift in the market place with the introduction of Microsoft Remote Desktop Services(RDS). Those organisations smart enough to stop and take stock of the next impending 3rd party renewal or thin client infrastructure refresh have seen that RDS is now very feature rich and capable of delivering what customers need from a traditional thin client solution. Matt McSpirit summarised it very well when he commented that you could not have imagined video content could be streamed with the Microsoft solution 18 months ago…. So the revolution is on now, organisations save money by deploying RDS and allocate it into more value add services which can only be a win win situation!!!! By the way unfortunately I don’t look out onto this tree from my home office, my view isn’t as nice but just as snowy….
Licensing resources for you
The following resources provide very useful information regarding Microsoft licensing. Being a challenging subject in its own right licensing and compliance requires customers are well informed and make the correct purchasing decisions. Developed by Microsoft here are another few gems which exist but aren’t publicised enough for customers!!!
Firstly the licensing portal can be found at http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/ and should be the first port of call for all licensing queries.
Secondly the online Microsoft License Advisor http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/mla/default.aspx will easily find and choose the Microsoft Volume Licensing program that can best help your organisation, simplify license management, optimise your IT infrastructure, and get the most value for your IT investment.
Finally the following link http://www.microsoft.com/midsizebusiness/default.mspx provides more than just license information for mid size organisations and is also worthy of your time.
Microsoft CAL suites made simple
Very useful information provided by the Microsoft licensing legend that is Emma Healey. Ever wondered what each of the CAL “suites” contains, wonder no more, below is the overview in a very handy table of the actual CALs you get per suite
Couple of points to note:
- Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suite are always sold with Software Assurance<SA> so they are technically version-less
- Core CAL suite are all Standard CALs
- Enterprise CAL Suite contains Standard and Enterprise CALs
- Core CAL and Enterprise CAL Suite contain additive CALs, so if you want Enterprise functionality, you need the Standard CAL + the Enterprise CAL
- EBS Premium and SBS Premium suite contain SQL CALs
- EBS and SBS are NOT additive, you buy Standard CALs for all and Premium CALs only for those users/devices accessing SQL
Get the table at http://ladylicensing.spaces.live.com/Blog/cns!87F95F1B5B21B01E!1822.entry
