SPLA Licensing

Is it SPLA or not?  That is the question.  My conversations have changed throughout the years.  It used to be “How do I license Exchange?”  Fast forward to today, and it’s more about the overall solution.  Some customers develop their application; provide it as a service; but include Office as part of that solution.  Without question, this has to be SPLA.   Yet another customer develops an application; provides it as a service; and does not include Office.  Without question, this has to be SPLA.  What!  What about self-hosted?  The first customer hosts Office which is not self-hosted eligible, therefore the entire solution must be SPLA.  The second customer, although has all the criteria for self-hosted, did not include Software Assurance.  Without SA, it must be SPLA.  There’s a ton of stories, situations, and even debate over what constitutes a SPLA agreement and what doesn’t.   Let’s provide other examples to show how complex this can be.

Customer Not SPLA

Customer has an organization where end customers are buying insurance and other products directly from them.  External users are accessing, but nothing is provided as a service.  There’s no SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE in this model.  Therefore, SPLA is not needed.  Think of a e-commerce website, blog, etc.

Customer Not SPLA

Customer has an organization that has a website to publish and share information.     Not every one has access to the same information, but end users are downloading documents and viewing content.  Again, there’s no SOFTWARE AS A SERVICE.

Customer SPLA

Customer has an organization that  leases an application from a third party.  They do not own the application but provide it out as a service to non-employees to help manage their business.  Since they do not own the application; are providing it AS A SERVICE; it’s SPLA.

Customer SPLA

Customer has an organization that developed an application, provide it as a service, and host it using Windows and SQL.  They did not purchase Software Assurance.  Since they did not purchase Software Assurance, they must license it via SPLA.

Customer SPLA

Customer has a portal with a software package that enables customers to purchase and research different insurance companies.  This would be SPLA.  Why?  In this example, the brokering software is used to benefit the end user, not the customer hosting the application.

That’s just a few examples.  Here’s a quick summary:

1. If you develop an application – Do you have active Software Assurance for those products used to run the application.
2. If you lease an application and market it as your own, that does not qualify either.  You have to OWN the actual application.
3. If the application is used to run or benefit the end user, that’s what Microsoft refers to “Software As A Service”

It gets more complicated with Datacenter Outsourcers (Azure), mixed environments, etc.

In conclusion, SPLA is complex, so is volume licensing, and so is determining which one really fits your environment.  Best advice I can provide, don’t work with someone that does not know these changes.  It will cost you.  Email me at info@splalicensing.com if you have questions.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

You might have heard the rumor that Windows 10 Upgrade license and the rental PC addendum is no longer part of SPLA.  Yep , that part is true.  If you want to know more just shoot me an email info@splalicensing.com

Why is Microsoft doing this?   If I knew half the reasons why Microsoft does what they do I would be wealthier than Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates combined.

But Microsoft doesn’t just give stuff away for free.  They still make money from the OEM manufactures and they still make money from SPLA.  For OEM, it’s pretty easy to understand.  In the rental PC business?  You still need an OEM or at least some type of license in order to have Windows 10.  But for SPLA, the revenue from Windows PC will hit hard.  In my opinion, the only way to make up that difference is through SPLA audits and other programs.

Thats the bigger issue here.  I just wrote a blog about saving money (without really answering how to save money).  What I’ve witnessed in my 10+ years of managing SPLA, service providers are way too concerned about Office 365 and far less concerned about how to optimize their own usage report. They may think they are 100% compliant and that there is no other way to reduce their costs, but I assure you there are.

If you’ve followed my blog for any length of time, you know I am an advocate for the service provider as oppose to being an advocate for the vendor.  Don’t get me wrong, I like Microsoft and value what they are doing.  As a very large shareholder (5 shares) I respect the mobile/cloud thing.  BUT that doesn’t mean you can’t win at SPLA.

Here are top 5 ways to win at SPLA.

1. SQL Mobility
2. Don’t renew at the time of expiration.
3. License Mobility
4. Sign a SPLA with me.
5. Leverage Datacenter Outsourcers to your advantage.
6. SPLA Audits
7. CIS
8. SQL Enterprise

If you don’t know what the above means, email me and we can go through it 1-1.   There’s 8 ways off that bat to save money. I under promised and over delivered already!!

Now you may be thinking you are 100% happy with your reseller.  If that’s the case, why are you reading splalicensing.com?   I will make a friendly bet with you…If you are hosting any Office 365 products (Exchange, Skype, SharePoint, Office) or even IaaS and I cannot think of one way to save you 10% off your monthly usage report, then I will apologize and quit.  If I do (whether or not you implement my strategy is a different story) you must switch your reseller and donate $5 to my buddy Brett. https://www.gofundme.com/team-brett-stay-strong.  Email me and put in the subject line “Friendly wager with SPLA Man” so I know.  Disclaimer below.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

PS

Disclaimer  -This is a free site used to help educate the community.  For all use rights as it pertains to SPLA, I must defer to everyone’s friend…the SPUR.   I will also not force you to switch resellers or donate anything. I will defnitely not quit; Mrs. SPLA Man would leave me for CSP Man.  (I think she may have eyes on him already, I’ve heard he’s doing quite well for himself).  It’s a friendly wager meant to help educate you.  Don’t sue me.  I  spend my weekends writing about SPLA licensing, I have enough problems already. 

Here’s a little story about a SPLA Provider (the hoster) who emailed me several times complaining about his reseller.  He just received an audit notification, he’s concerned about inadequate licensing guidance, he over reported on licenses because no one he talked to could help him, and last but certainly not least, he’s scared because of the possibility of underreporting SQL.  This is based off the information his reseller provided to him. He found my blog helpful but when I asked, “why are you still with your reseller?”  He told me he likes to be invoiced from one source, he’s been with them for a long time, and he doesn’t want to complicate things.

Now I am not a math wizard by any stretch of the imagination, but if added everything he pays in Microsoft licensing alone, it would be well over one million US dollars.  When I did a quick analysis of his usage reporting, I found he was reporting Windows Standard by VM instead of by physical processor.  So he was under reporting  his Windows licenses.  He was also reporting his SQL environment by core (yay!) but he was reporting all physical cores and virtual cores in the environment with SQL Enterprise.  He was virtualized but wasn’t taking advantage of the use right called “license mobility within server farms.” Last, SQL Enterprise has unlimited virtualization rights as long as all physical cores are licensed.

In conclusion, his reseller told him he was under reporting SQL, when he was actually over reporting SQL.  So what did he do?  He paid his bill and continued with his reseller. It was too much of a hassle to move.  (it’s just a one page document).  He couldn’t utter the words “it’s not you…it’s me” and switch resellers.

Moral of the story?  Don’t report out of convenience, report what you owe but not a dime over.  It pays to work with someone who knows the program.

Thanks for reading

SPLA Man

Happy New Year!  I thought I would write about some upcoming changes to SPLA that could drastically effect your costs.  Get your readers on and be sure to bookmark this one!  In this post I will highlight the What – How – When – but also what you can do to proactively to benefit from this change.

Windows 2016

What?  Two versions – Windows Standard and Windows Datacenter.

How?  You mean how it’s licensed?  By core.   It’s licensed by physical core and requires a minimum of 8 cores (not 4 as with SQL) per processor.

When?  My guess will be August/September timeframe.

So now that we have that out of the way, let’s review what it means for you and your business.  Early indications say that 1 core would cost roughly 1/4 of the cost of a single processor license.  There is a minimum of 8 cores that must be licensed, so there is a bit of math involved. If you can calculate the number of cores per processor it would help me calculate what your total new SPLA report would look like.

Other factors in determining your costs would be virtualization.  As with older versions, Datacenter will allow for unlimited VMs.  Are you for certain going to be migrating to Windows 2016 in the near future or are you slowly migrating to newer versions?

If you are NOT going to migrate to Windows 2016 right away and/or not going to migrate ALL your servers at once to Windows 2016, please  contact me at info@splalicensing.com  There’s a reason for this and I have a few tricks up my sleeve that could really help reduce your costs.

I love licensing.  What I do best is find loopholes.  And I certainly found one here.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

As 2015 comes to a close, I thought I would make some predictions for 2016.   Do you think I will be right?

1. Software Assurance will be the key question to ask your customers.
2. Microsoft will launch a SPLA tool to help track SPLA licenses
3. Windows will be licensed by cores and maybe System Center will too.
4. There will also be a 8 core minimum per processor for prediction # 3.
5. Windows Server will have mobility rights.
6. Windows 10 will have VDI rights for Azure
7. There will be no changes for SQL
8. Microsoft will audit companies hosting 3rd party applications but not under SPLA. Talking to you Kcura and EMR hosters.
9. There will be price increases announced during the year.
10. SPLAlicensing.com will add more articles than ever before.

I am a betting man (not really) and I would wager 90% of what was mentioned above will come true.  Any takers?  It’s a sure bet because  some already came true.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

Another month and another round of licensing questions answered.  If you have individual licensing questions or would like a second opinion, please email info@splalicensing.com

Does Windows have mobility rights?

No, unless your company is called Microsoft and you have a datacenter called Azure.

My customer has an MSDN subscription.   Can they transfer the licenses over to our datacenter in a shared hardware infrastructure?

See answer to question 1.

Can my customer purchase Windows 10 with Software Assurance and transfer that license into our datacenter?

See answer to question 1.

So what does this mean to you as a service provider?  Like anything else, let’s focus on what you can do and not what can’t.  Azure, Amazon, Rackspace, and all the others are not going away; perhaps it’s time to rethink your market strategy.  What strategy is that?  Well, for starters you are not Azure, Amazon, and Rackspace.  Let’s start there.

Thanks for reading

SPLA Man