

Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses 300
* * Beatles-Beatles is one of many to let us know that Microsoft has changed how they handle licensing for Windows Server and related products with regards to virtual machine environments. The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors rather than the number of physical processors in the computer.
My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:3, Funny)
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:3, Funny)
find: life: No such file or directory
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:2)
Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:3, Informative)
You know... I'm no Microsoft-guru either (but I do know how to spell it correctly), but you know... There are cases where a network consists of more than your three networked Linux-machines. You know, big corporate networks which require central management.
I'm not saying it can't be done otherwise, and if you do happen to know other viable means, feel free to tell me, but for jobs like this Active Directory actually kicks ass. A simple update on your group policies and it's implemented network wide. Aga
Active Directory? What are you smoking? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not sure what MS-Exchange features you're looking for, either. Semi-automatically misconfiguring the HELO string? Dinking with attachments (maybe bundling them all into a WINMAIL.DAT file)? Write access to the entire mail database for the lowliest user? Randomly hanging onto mail for half an hour or so? Name your favourite!
Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
I love this quote from the article: Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm>
Re:Good for them (Score:5, Insightful)
Bob Armstrong, managing director of IT at Delaware North Cos. in Buffalo, N.Y., said he hasn't even evaluated running SQL Server in a virtual environment because of the license fees that would be required. Armstrong noted that with a virtualized quad-processor system, Delaware North would have to pay for four instances of the databases under Microsoft's previous policy, even if it used only two processors for SQL Server. "We were waiting for the change," he said.
They're not talking about virtual processors, they're talking about the number of actual processors used to run the virtual OS.
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Insightful)
The article was plenty weird in how they gave their examples. Until I get a more clear explenation I'm just gonna assume that whatever will put more money in Bill's pocket is most accurate.
TW
Re:Good for them (Score:2, Insightful)
"Product activation is a technology that protects users from pirated software ... by limiting use of a product"
(according to Norton Internet Security 2005 dialog box, when it craps out 15 days after installation)
--
We totally stop working after 365 days and cannot
be removed from your system ( without upgrading )
to protect you from the Y2K6 bug that we made up.
Re:Good for them (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Informative)
- This is a pay for what you use deal under virtualization, e.g. customers now buy fewer licenses in most scenarios
- Microsoft supports 1 license per physical CPU. The story is still somewhat inconsistent with Oracle, IBM, etc (try getting a straight answer from Oracle)
Re:Good for them (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, this will lower prices for anyone it affects. Currently, if you have a four processor box running (e.g.) VMWare, and partition it into four virtual machines, one of which is running SQL Server, you need a four-processor SQL Server licence. Under the change in terms, you'll only need a single-processor licence.
Congrats on getting your "+5, Bashes MS" though.
Re:Good for them (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Good for them (Score:3, Insightful)
Well... (Score:3, Interesting)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative)
If I have a 4 way box running 3 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 3 single CPU licenses (before I owed them for one 4 way license, more expensive).
If I have a 4 way box running 6 Windows VMs, I owe MS for 6 single CPU licenses (a 4 way license is cheaper than 6 singles)
According to TFA, you would never run more servers than CPUs in protection. That is utter bullcrap. ESX scales to 10 servers on a 2 way box according to VMware. I have a GSX box running on a 2 way box, and I have 6 production boxes using 25% of the CPU at any given time. That means I could scale to 15 with little trouble. In other words, this new scheme costs me more, a LOT more, than it did before.
So yeah, MS is screwing us. They're just either misinformed or hoping the readers are.
Re:Well... (Score:3, Insightful)
Umm... it's not very smart to run SQL Server in a virtual machine environment. RDBMS are far to memory and
Re:Well... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Well... (Score:3, Informative)
Instead of before, when their software running in VM's had to use a license for your physical processors (and these could be many), they can now use another (cheaper) license for the virtual processor. For people using their software in VM's this should usually be a good thing, although there are exceptions given.
Here's a quote: (bolding mine since it's vital; it's not like you could just skip licensing before, you had to go for a more expensive model of licensing for all your processors... now you onl
Re:How is that cheating? (Score:3, Insightful)
If you've got SharePoint, MS SQL, Exchange and Terminal Server all running on the same server and you use that server for file and print services, guess what you need 5 CALs for each and every client.
1 client licenes for Exchange
1 client license for MS SQL
1 SharePoint client license (SharePoint btw, requires MS SQL)
1 client license
Re:How is that cheating? (Score:2)
Re:How is that cheating? (Score:3, Insightful)
Each copy of XP Pro comes with a CAL for Terminal services - but only if your server for Terminal Services is running Server 2000.
Those CAL's are not valid if your TS box is running Server 2003 (once known as XP Server)
How will this work for Windows? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:2)
Last I heard, the break-down goes something like this:
Home: 1 CPU Pro: 2 CPUs Windows 2k Server: 4 CPUs 2k Advanced server: 16 CPUs 2k Datacenter: 32 CPUs
I don't know the numbers for 2k3 server. And I might be off by about a factor of two.
I stumbled across an interesting article that indicated that windows 2k may, in some cases, count
No. Per processor, not core. (Score:2)
"On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model."
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:4, Informative)
I somehow doubt this licensing applies to "virtual" processors in a standard server (not a virtual machine), at least that was the stance they had taken previously.
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:5, Insightful)
As you said, under the old system, you were charged for each processor. Thus, a server with two physical processors was charged for two processor licenses for SQL Server even though you were only running it on one. The situation now lets you simply purchase a single license for each CPU you are _actually running it on_. Despite everyone shouting greed, this is a rare occasion of MS doing what the customers (Corp Customers) have been asking for for a long time.
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:2, Interesting)
Most of our SQL boxes are *quad* Xeon rigs. We don't turn on hyperthreading (that would probably be dumb), but I wonder what would happen to our licenses if we did. If we paid for a 4-CPU license and I hop over to the BIOS to turn HT on... does that mean I'm violating the EULA because I'm running the thing on eight processors? What about the Server 2003 license?
Weird. I mean, if you're running a single physical Xeon or P4 box and you buy a si
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:2)
As I responded to the grandparent:
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/highlights/mult icore.mspx [microsoft.com]
"On October 19, 2004, Microsoft announced that its server software that is currently licensed on a per-processor model will continue to be licensed on a per-processor, and not on a per-core, model."
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:2)
It's the number of INSTANCES you run (Score:3, Insightful)
Although this is loosely equivalent to having to pay for your TV twice if you use it once for primary viewing and again for picture in picture...
Re:It's the number of INSTANCES you run (Score:2)
Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:2)
Re:The way this works for windows... (Score:5, Informative)
If you have a four CPU server running 6 virtual OS's, if you only want SQL Server on one of those OS's you only need one copy, where as before if you wanted it on 1 you had to buy four copies.
Re:The way this works for windows... (Score:5, Informative)
More to the point you had to buy a 4 cpu licence for that single virtual server even though most virtual servers only virtualize a single processor and so you were paying the 4 cpu price for a 1cpu equivalent server.
To address the comment about dual core processors I am pretty darn sure I read in the past that Microsoft had adopted a policy of treating a single dual core processor as 1 cpu and not 2.
Re:The way this works for windows... (Score:2)
wow. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:wow. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:I don't get it. (Score:2)
fill free to count (Score:2, Funny)
- MB per instalation;
- Number of temp files created and not deleted;
- Number of blue screen of death;
- Number of Bluetooth devices you won't use after upgrading service pack;
- Number of Linux Admin that will nag you for using Bill Gates OS;
This, of course, means war (Score:5, Funny)
I guess the answer for this is to start paying for virtual licenses with virtual money.
Re:This, of course, means war (Score:2)
Great! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes....
It's actually an old story (Score:4, Interesting)
MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here: (Score:5, Informative)
Also check out his great series on running old games under Virtual PC.
For old games (Score:2)
Between DOSBox and what's built in, I rarely find an old game I can't run. DOSBox runs on Linux too.
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
Re:For old games (Score:2)
Obviously a tough decision... (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Now Microsoft will really be able to compete! (Score:2, Funny)
For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative)
2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's
3) Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition is now licenced for 4 instances of itself per Machine. So you could run 4 Windows 2K3 Servers VM's on one server and MS says "go for it"
The Details from the Horse at MS [microsoft.com]
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative)
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:2)
companies who charge per cpu are downright STEALING from their customers. yes, real dollars that cannot be replicated due to the secret service busting their counterfeiting asses.
"it's their software".... after they SOLD it too?
pardon me while i go do something productive, like skin a shill alive.
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:2)
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Insightful)
True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.
In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.
So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...
Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.
If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative)
In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.
So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...
Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.
If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...
These licensing changes are for companies who are using virtualization in production environments. If you are even a small-time developer, it makes sense for you to purchase an MSDN subscription (prices range from about $500 to $2500 for a year, depending on the products you need). MSDN recently included Virtual Server amongst its offerings. A few points about MSDN subscriptions:
- You subscribe for one year, which gives you a starter set of all software on CD/DVD, plus 12 months of updates mailed to you and access to the download site.
- MSDN licenses are *perpetual*. Even after your subscription lapses, all the software you have is still fully licensed and legal. It can even be resold (must go as an entire unit though).
- Retail subscriptions come with retail keys, which generally means 10 activations. If you ever run out, though, I've found you can just give them a ring and they'll give you another key to use. Subscriptions purchased under volume licenses come with volume license keys and no activation.
- The license is a free-for-all for development and test purposes. From the EULA [microsoft.com]: "For purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s)
None of these licensing changes affect developers who are running software for development and testing purposes. Accuse Microsoft of gouging real customers if you must, but developers get a pretty sweet deal with MSDN.
Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative)
Well, that's one very rare scenario. A more common one is I have 4 VMWare instances running Windows on 1 CPU. I'm working on consolidating 12 lightly-used servers onto 12 VMWare sessions on a 4-CPU machine.
Server consolidation through virtualization is a popular trend and Microsoft is capitalizing on it. We were buying 1 license per VM anyway, so no change here.
Limiting an app to one processor? (Score:4, Insightful)
Seems like I should only have to pay the single VCPU price, but I imagine that won't be the case will it...
Was I the only one to misread the title... (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Was I the only one to misread the title... (Score:2)
This is obviously to increase revenue from customers running VMware 5.5 when it releases - 5.5 will support mulitple virtual processors on a uniprocessor system....
Sure, no problem (Score:4, Funny)
Allow or require? (Score:3, Interesting)
So now you get a dual core cpu ( soon you wont have a choice ), and you get screwed by Microsoft.
What is next, back to per cycle charges?
Or how about just change to a national 'per brain' charge? Once a person is born, they just start charging you since eventually you will use a computer of some sort.
Its all a f-ing scam. Should they be able to make a profit? Sure. But should they be allowed to screw you? No.
Re:Allow or require? (Score:2)
Re:Allow or require? (Score:2)
Bzzt. Yes, they should be allowed to screw you. But you can't be forced to let them.
Bzzzt No they shouldnt (Score:2)
Re:Allow or require? (Score:2)
All you have to do is not buy their stuff. Then all you have to do is convince other people that Linux is easier to use, works on more hardware with less fuss, does everything they want, etc. No problem, right? Or, just convince everyone that Oracle is cheaper, or maybe DB2. And once you've used your calm, persuasive explanations to steer people away from Windows and over to a easier, plug-and-play no-compiling, no fus
1 Copy != 1 Price ? (Score:5, Insightful)
It really should be 1 CD & 1 Product Key = 1 price.
Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ? (Score:2)
you cannot thank anyone who has an ounce of reason or a shred of decency.
back to our regularly scheduled propoganda.
Re:1 Copy != 1 Price ? (Score:4, Funny)
Now all we need to do (Score:4, Funny)
What's virtual? (Score:3, Insightful)
What's the difference between running two instances of Application X on one CPU, and running one instance of Application X on each of two CPUs?
It boils down to the question "what is virtual, anyway?". If I run a process under an emulator, versus running it on the native operating system, there's no difference as far as the application is concerned. Only its execution environment has changed. So presumably I should require two licenses of the operating system, because I am running two instances of it.
It makes sense to count not CPUs but the number of concurrent instances of an application, irrespective where they run. For applications which are licensed according to some scale, of course. Thanks but no thanks, I'll stick with linux and OSS!
finally they step up (Score:4, Funny)
* the gatesean technical term for krapware
Payment plans (Score:2, Redundant)
Why license by CPU anyway? (Score:2, Funny)
VMs in blades (Score:3, Interesting)
My company recently setup a rack of 40 blades, each with 16GBs of RAM and all attached to SAN. Each blade is capable of running about 10 VMs. The same setup is duplicated at the redundant site, and a high-speed connection between the two locations, with about 92TBs of storage between them. Supposedly, the VMs can be moved around between any of the blade between the two locations, giving us the possibility of about 800 VMs...all within about 1 rack's worth of space.
Now, each blade does NOT have 10 processors, but is capable of running 10 VMs easily. And though I can't say I like Microsoft for wanting to charge for virtual processors, I can understand why they'd do it.
Does this exist? (Score:2)
Most useful for testing multi-cpu software for basic compatibility I would think.
man (Score:2, Insightful)
MS Licences and GDPs (Score:3, Informative)
UK GDP - source Google - $ 1,782,000,000,000
0.3% of UK GDP = $5,346,000,000 or $5.4bn
I'm sure the UK spends a lot on Windows. But bear in mind that Microsoft's total annual revenues are only about $40bn, of which roughly half is client (Windows XP, etc.) and server (Windows 2003 Server). (In fact this over-states total Windows licenses, as there is also SQL Server, etc. in there.) But even on a best case, you're saying that the UK buys more than a quarter of all Microsoft Windows licenses. In fact, what you're really doing is making up sprurious statistics to get some temporary kudos.
Next item of absurdity: "the United Kingdom spends 0.3% of GDP on it's transport infrastructure". Really? Source please. Of course there is no source, because this is a ridiculous made up number. Lets go to the UK Office of National Statistics: oh! it turns out that the UK government (excluding what is spent by private industry) spends, da da, £20bn on transport infrastructure. (Which, at today's exchange rate is about $35bn, or around 2% of GDP.)
Contrast with IBM (Score:3, Informative)
Lawn Mower Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
If software companies are allowed to control "their property" in this way, I don't see why sellers of physical products won't eventually do the same thing. Instead of buying a product and owning it, you'll merely be buying a license to use it for a certain amount of time. Then the license will expire and you'll either have to renew it or throw the product away. Tell me how this is different from what software companies are already doing?
Virus Maker Ware? (Score:3, Informative)
So if *someone* were to *accidentally* release a virus that doubled the number of virtual processors (I don't know how that's done, I'm assuming it's in software)
A "virtual processor" is created inside a copy of vmware, virtual pc, or other PC emulation[1] software. Good luck fitting a copy of a PC emulator into a worm's payload.
[1] Pedants: Virtualization involves emulating most of a PC, even if it does use JIT recompilation [wikipedia.org] from x86 to x86. This is necessary in part because of design flaws in some
Re:Virus Maker Ware? (Score:2)
Put one of those in a worm and run a few hundred copies of it on a Linux machine, then send MS the money...
Re:Virus Maker Ware? (Score:2)
Well, since PCTask for the Amiga was only 300k, and that was emulating an 80486 on a M68000 cpu, I'd say it is eminently possible. Highly unlikely anyone would be motivated to do something like that just to bump up Microsoft's revenue, but still possible.
Right! (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Virtual processors? 64bit = 2 32bit? (Score:2)
but only if it's on sale.
otherwise it's 2^32 times more.
Beacuse They can (Score:2)
This is one reason 'per cycle' charges have almost dissapeared. Once the minis arrived on the scene, most people rebelled against that sort of license fee.
Re:Explain this to me. (Score:4, Insightful)
And you know what? Microsoft is not stupid. If Oracle or DB2 wasn't priced the same way, they wouldn't do it. But there's a reason that super-duper heavy duty products/implementations are expensive - it's not just "because they can."
Re:Explain this to me. (Score:2)
either help introduce honest commerce into the world of business or lie down and take it.
Re:They have to do SOMETHING (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused... (Score:3, Informative)
This high number of virtual processors is likely to come into fashion in an ASP situation. If you look at vmware enterprise-like solutions where you can have standby virtual processors on other machines and the like.
Seems like a money grab to me that will just alienate folk, just like t