I took a little time away from the computer, hoping Microsoft would make licensing easier for everyone and we could all retire to the beach. Unfortunately, my dream was crushed. I am not on a beach, and Microsoft is NOT making licensing easier. There are different rights dependent on how the customer purchased the licenses. Let’s review:

Licensing Windows Server VMs in CSP! 

Sounds great, but be careful; depending on the specific outsourcing scenario changes how you license. Let’s take a look at it more closely.

Purchase CSP for on-premise but use an authorized outsourcer.

 In this scenario, your customer (assuming you, the reader, are an authorized outsourcer) will need to purchase the following through CSP:

1. License all virtual cores with a minimum of 8 cores per VM. They must purchase additional licenses for additional cores. 
2. Assign CALs to users or devices. This is huge. There’s no CAL requirement in SPLA (or CSP Hoster and Azure). 

Deploy through the CSP Hoster Program  (this is when the licenses are acquired and hosted by a CSP-Hoster partner); the end customer must purchase the following:

1. License all virtual cores with a minimum of 8 cores per VM. They must purchase additional licenses for additional cores.
2. NO CALs required

Using Azure

The exact same rules apply to using a CSP-Hoster.

SPLA

No changes to SPLA, BUT if you provide SPLA for Windows, the entire server must be SPLA. You CAN provide Windows SPLA and have the customer bring applications through the flexible virtualization benefit. Similar to license mobility.

Subscription licenses for dual access rights (Using subscriptions on-premise and in the cloud) and Server installation rights

Customers who purchased Microsoft 365 Enterprise have dual access rights, but the poor souls who bought Business do not. On-Premise SERVER software installation rights for Microsoft 365 E3/E5 are allowed, but the user subscription license must be purchased through an Enterprise Agreement (Not CSP)

Windows 10/11 VDI

Customers with subscription licenses or licenses with active Software Assurance (including Windows device licenses)

may run Windows desktop software on Authorized Outsourcers’ shared or dedicated servers for access by their licensed users or users accessing from licensed devices (Microsoft Outsourcing Software Management Brier)

Again, it does depend on how the customer purchased the licenses and which program. For argument’s sake, let’s say your customer purchased Windows Enterprise through an Enterprise Agreement. Good for them. They got ripped off. (Just kidding). Windows Enterprise licenses (such as Windows Enterprise E3) are sold as upgrade licenses to Windows Pro and have a Qualified Operating System prerequisite. This means that a user must have a device with a Qualified Operating System  to be eligible to be assigned a Windows Enterprise license *Source Licensing Windows 365 and Windows 11 Virtual Desktops for Remote Access.

However, if your customer purchased Microsoft 365 licenses, congratulation, they did not get ripped off; any user can be assigned a Microsoft 365 license regardless of the underlying device. 

I will go into VDI in another blog post, and there are many moving parts with it. If you have questions about it, I recommend emailing info@splalicensing.com to learn more about it. 

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man