Microsoft announces licensing changes, frugal admins rejoice!

Written on Aug 19 2008 Filed under: Server Virtualization, Virtualization, Support, Licensing 2,788 views, 6 comments

by Gabe Knuth

At last, Microsoft has announced a virtualization-friendly change to the license agreements for 41 server products. The changes will allow administrators to run software on more than one physical piece of hardware, which, in the world of VMotion, XenMotion, and OS provisioning is a welcome change.

Prior to today, according to the license agreement included with several packages of Microsoft software, packages were allowed to be installed on only one piece of physical hardware, and that licensed piece of software could only move to another physical machine after 90 days had passed.

In the virtualized world, one of the many benefits is that virtual servers can be moved across physical machines to maintain availability or increase resources. In this case, that portion of the license agreement technically required people to purchase a license for each physical server that the software package would run on.

Thankfully, that's no more.

Today Microsoft announced a widely expected change to their licensing program for 41 server products, including Exchange Server 2007, System Center, and SQL Server 2008.  The updated license agreements allow customers to move any of these applications from server to server without paying any additional fees.

"Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," said Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization in the Server and Tools Business at Microsoft. "Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now."

In addition, Microsoft will now support 31 server applications running inside of virtual environments that have been validated through the new "Server Virtualization Validation Program." Virtualization vendors can join the program by validating that their platform is capably of running Windows Server 2008 and previous versions of Windows Server. At this time Cisco, Citrix, Novell, Sun Microsystems, Virtual Iron, and of course, VMware are participating.

Comments

Guest wrote Where is VMware?

on 08-19-2008 3:05 PM

I´m checking the list of participants in the SVVP, and VMWare is not included. The other ones, Cisco, Citrix, Novell, Sun and Virtual Iron, yes.

Guest wrote Some more details

on 08-20-2008 4:16 AM

VMware is in it aswell. They were a little late and therefore are not yet shown on the website. An official VMware statement is expected today.

According to VM /ETC (http://vmetc.com/2008/08/19/new-microsoft-application-mobility-brief-does-not-cover-the-windows-operating-system/)  Windows as OS is NOT part of this license change !!! Big Big disappointment.

Tim Mangan wrote CIO has a decent article covering this also.

on 08-21-2008 9:52 AM

http://www.cio.com/article/44716/Microsoft_License_Shift_Leaves_Virtual_Machines_Half_Shackled?contentId=44716&slug=&source=nld_coinsider

Guest wrote Re: CIO has a decent article covering this also.

on 08-21-2008 8:09 PM

better link:

http://www.cio.com/article/444716/Microsoft_License_Shift_Leaves_Virtual_Machines_Half_Shackled

Guest wrote They also...

on 08-22-2008 8:48 AM

...left out SQL 2005 and Exchange 2003.  This is a Microsoft ploy to force the cattle into the chute i.e. get users to upgrade their software versions.  It's a step in the right direction, as a previous poster stated, but there's a long way to go.  Also, Microsoft still reserves the right to make users on SVVP-validated hypervisors move their issues to physical hardware or Hyper-V, so it remains to be seen whether MS Support provides any better assistance to folks who call with issues running M$ applications on non-Hyper-V, SVVP hypervisors.

Guest wrote not left out

on 08-26-2008 2:08 PM

Microsoft no longer sell these products, you have to use downgrade rights, so this will apply to old versions as well.

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