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300 Level SPLA Licensing

02 Jun

Now it’s time to get into the fun part; the licensing scenarios that can literally drive you NUTS because if interpreted wrong, it can cost you and your company money.  Based on experience, here’s a list of the top confusing scenarios….simplified.

Customer Owned Licenses

Let’s say you have a customer that would like to bring their license into your datacenter.  You first ask them if the licenses are legit and if they have software assurance for those licenses.  Why ask if they have software assurance (SA).  If they have SA on certain software applications, they could be eligible for license mobility (shared hardware, dedicated VM).  If they do not have software assurance, now you have to consider dedicating (see dedicated v shared in this post) a server and VM for that customer and that customer only.  Without software assurance, they do not qualify for license mobility.  So keep this in mind – no software assurance = 100% dedicated hosting.

Now let’s say the end customer owns 100 Exchange licenses (CAL) without SA and they would like you to host Exchange for them using these licenses. No problem, you just dedicate a server for those users. But what happens if they hire 50 more employees that need Exchange?  Do you simply add those additional 50 users via SPLA or do they have to buy those additional 50 licenses from their volume licensing agreement?  If you picked the latter, you would be correct.

You cannot mix server/CALs on a product-by-product basis. This means the end customer CAL’s for a particular product cannot be used to access servers deployed with that product and which are licensed by the service provider under SPLA. It is ok for a service provider to rely on end customer owned licenses for one particular product (like SQL) but acquire licenses for a different product (like Windows) via their SPLA as long as they dedicate the server.  It also means that if an end customer has Servers/CALs for a particular product(s) and chooses to move to a hosted model with a service provider, they will need to acquire any additional licenses for that product(s) under their volume licensing agreement (i.e. if they increase the number of seats or need more servers for deployment or load balancing). It’s not ok for the service provider to acquire SAL’s under SPLA when the number of seats goes up for the end customer or when additional servers is required. This is because the licensing construct of internal use doesn’t match that of SPLA ,and therefore needs to be separate.

Dedicated v Shared

So what does “dedicated” and what is “shared mean?”  In short, it means one customer per server/VM for dedicated, and multiple customers using the same server/VM for shared.  But what about the other components of a hosted offering?  You have a SAN, does that need to be dedicated?  No, according to this document it doesn’t (download it  here)

“Any hardware running an instance of Microsoft software (OS or application) must be dedicated to a single customer. For example, a SAN device that is not running any Microsoft software may be shared by more than one customer; whereas, a server or SAN device that runs Microsoft software may only be used by one customer.”

So ask yourself “is this running Microsoft software on this device?”

SQL Virtualization

SQL virtualization boils down to five options

1) License per virtual machine (if nothing is running physical)

2) License the physical cores on the host and report SQL Enterprise. (allows you to run unlimited VMs)

3) License both physical and virtual (if reporting Standard or Web and it’s running both physically and virtually)

4) Report SQL Business Intelligence (BI) which is licensed per user and can access multiple servers (physical and virtual)

5) Report SQL Standard per user.  Same story as BI.

Don’t forget about license mobility within server farms.  A server farm by Microsoft’s definition consists up to two datacenter located within 4 hours of each other.  So if you have a datacenter in Seattle and another datacenter in New Jersey; that does not qualify.  Likewise if you are in Europe; the datacenter must be “within the European Union (EU) and/or European Free Trade Association (EFTA)

One benefit of license mobility within server farms is it will allow a qualified VM to migrate from one host to the next within the same server farm without adding additional licensing costs.  You have to license the machine with the most processors or cores to be compliant.  In the Service Provider Use Rights (SPUR) it shows you if the product is license mobility within server farms eligible.  Pay attention to this use right; there’s a lot of service providers who are reporting license mobility without license mobility.

Hope this brings some clarity.  If  you have additional questions contact me at blaforge@splalicensing.com

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 

 
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Posted by on June 2, 2014 in Uncategorized

 

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Self Hosted Rights and Office

04 Feb

The other day I was on a call with a customer who developed a financial application that takes a customer’s information and then reports it back from Excel.  The goal would be to have it deployed via a web browser, possibly using SharePoint.  Immediately I thought of Office Web App.  Browser based, users could not only read it but edit it as well, sounds like a perfect fit  What about the licensing?  Since this is their own Intellectual Property (IP) I thought of the self hosted rights for volume licensing.  SPLA might be too expensive since users could not be tracked. This is where we got stuck. 

Self hosted is a software assurance benefit. It allows volume licensing customers to host their application that runs on Microsoft technology to third parties. I included the terms and conditions directly from the Product Use Rights (PUR) at the bottom of this post (in case you are really bored) but in my opinion this will allow developers to continue to build their applications and utilize volume licensing that offers the greater discount.

As a SAM manager, I was engaged by the customer to review both past and current licensing.  Since this was a new offering, nothing was licensed or even deployed yet.   Whew…Rule #1 – before building a datacenter make sure the solution fits the licensing. Secondly, this is being provided as a service, not simply allowing external users to access.

What did we advise? In order for a solution to qualify as “self-hosted” all applications must be self hosted eligible. Unfortunately, Office does not qualify. Ugh. There goes that option. Now we must look at SPLA for everything (one unified solution as defined in the PUR). The problem with SPLA is you must license Office STD or PRO to enable Office Web Apps. To add more complexity, Office in a server environment is licensed by user (SPLA) Since user count is expected to be very high, this does not seem to be an economical solution. What I proposed was to get rid of Office. That’s right, I recommended they remove it from the solution and use Open Office. The solution worked and met the compliance guidelines set forth by Microsoft.

In conclusion, I hated my recommendation but went with it in order to be compliant. Microsoft Office is a superior product to “Open Office” If only Microsoft would allow Office to be self hosted eligible, I think it would benefit the service provider, Microsoft, and more importantly the end customer.

Bottom line- make sure if you have your OWN application (not license someone else’s) and you decide to use volume licensing to host, make sure all software is eligible or risk BIG compliance risk.

Thanks for reading.

SPLA Man

From the PUR
You must have the required Microsoft licenses and maintain Software Assurance coverage for:
• the Self-Hosted Applications run as part of the Unified Solution; and
• all access licenses used to make the Unified Solution available to external users (See Universal License Terms, Definitions).
All Microsoft software used to create and deliver the Unified Solution must:
• be licensed through a Volume Licensing program that is subject to these license terms (e.g., Enterprise Agreement, Select Plus Agreement, Open License Agreement) and not any other (e.g., Services Provider License Agreement, Independent Software Vendor Royalty License and Distribution Agreement); and
• be marked as ‘Yes’ for ‘Self Hosting of Applications Allowed’ in these license terms
Your software must:
• add significant and primary functionality to the Self-Hosted Applications that are part of the Unified Solution (dashboards, HTML editors, utilities, and similar technologies are not a primary service and/or application of a Unified Solution);
• be the principal service and/or application, and sole point of access, to the Unified Solution;
• be delivered over the Internet or a private network from your datacenter to end users. The Self-Hosted Applications component may not be loaded onto the end user’s device; and
• be owned, not licensed, by you, except that your software may include non-substantive third party software that is embedded in, and operates in support of, your software.

 
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Posted by on February 4, 2014 in Compliance, Self Hosted

 

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Office needs mobility rights

13 Dec

The number one post on splalicensing.com is “Office 365 under SPLA”  To date over 20,000 users have read it, several have commented on it, and many more are still asking – what am I missing and why can’t I offer “SPLA Office” in the same fashion as Office 365?

Microsoft recently announced mobility rights for Remote Desktop Services  (RDS).  I wrote about it here I think that’s a great move by Microsoft as it provides more flexibility for both service providers and consumers.  In my opinion, we need Office mobility rights, and we needed it yesterday.

Think about your environment and the licensing restrictions around Office.  To legally deploy Office for a customer that has Office 365, you as a service provider would need to have your customer purchase 1 volume licensing copy of Office, install it on your server, and for each user for Office 365, they must allocate one of the five licenses (Office 365 allows 5 installations of Office on 5 devices per user) to access Office remotely.  The Office bits on Office 365 has issues with installing it on server. Thus, the reason for a volume license copy of Office.  (at least that’s my experience in the past, maybe that’s changed now) Doesn’t sound too bad.  Five devices is a lot anyways, and now with RDS mobility rights, the service provider can use the end customers RDS licenses (if they have software assurance).  YES!!!!

Ahh…but what about Office?  Does Office have mobility rights? The answer is….no.  Although the service provider can have customer RDS mobility rights, since Office is installed, the entire environment has to be dedicated.  Yes, that includes the hardware and the VM.  That’s the issue I struggle with and I am sure many of you do too.  Why offer RDS mobility rights but not Office?  This would solve some of the issues between Office 365 and the service provider community.  Office is expensive for SPLA’s, let’s allow end customers to leverage their existing volume licensing agreements to purchase it and allow service providers to host it in a shared hardware/ dedicated VM using mobility rights? Think of how many users would purchase Office under Office 365 if they did this?  Or if they didn’t purchase Office 365, they would at least need to purchase Office with Software Assurance.  Think of how many service providers would push volume licensing on behalf of Microsoft and the resellers if they allowed this? Either way Microsoft, service providers, and more importantly the end customer would win.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 
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Posted by on December 13, 2013 in License Mobility, Office 365

 

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The Cloud Platform Suite (CPS)

01 Nov

The Cloud Platform Suite (CPS in Microsoft language) is a new SKU coming January, 2014 and will be in the next release of the SPUR.   (there’s a lot of acronyms in this post). CPS is a bit out of the norm for SPLA;  the licensing is by processor and by guest instance.  CPS combines Windows Server 2012 and System Center 2012 in one SKU (similar to the Core Infrastructure SKU (CIS)).  To add to the complexity, the core infrastructure suite is not going away. I wrote an overview recently that provides great details in licensing Windows, CIS, and CPS at “Licensing in a virtual world”

On the surface, CIS and CPS appear to be the same SKU, but there are significant differences.  To reiterate, the Core Infrastructure Suite is licensed by processor on the host and will allow you to run virtual instances depending on the SKU in which you report – Datacenter= unlimited VM’s/Standard= 1 VM.  CPS is licensed by processor on the host and by virtual instance.   CPS will allow the VM to move to different hosts, as long as the underlying host is licensed and you report the highest number of VMs.  The other caveat – you must RUN Windows 2012, System Center 2012 and HYPER V.  If you are not running Hyper V, you cannot license CPS.

Why would you report one over the other?  It really boils down to the number of VM’s deployed.  You need to calculate the total cost of the solution (both the number of hosts and VM’s), and whether or not you decide to install 2012.  If not, you cannot license CPS.

In my opinion, if you are virtualized, but not highly virtualized, CPS is your answer.  If you have high number of VMs, stick with Datacenter.  Remember, under CPS you have to license each guest separately.  (except if it’s Linux, no “guest” fee is charged for Linux VMs running on the Cloud Platform Suite “host”).  The cost is not astronomical per VM, but if you run 100’s of VMs, the cost can add up quickly.

Clear as mud?  Probably. It’s Microsoft licensing.  That being said, I think this is a good SKU for smaller environments and provides more options for service providers.  In Microsoft eyes, this SKU will encourage their customers and partners to deploy 2012R2.

Hope this helps and thanks for reading. There will be more insight on this as we get closer to January.  Stay tuned!

SPLA Man

 
5 Comments

Posted by on November 1, 2013 in Cloud Platform Suite

 

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Two heads are better than one!

16 Oct

We all know Amazon. What was once known as an online bookstore has transformed into an online behemoth of hosted services. What’s interesting about Amazon, like Microsoft and others, is they leverage strategic partnerships to grow their business. Microsoft does this through the partner channel (you, me, and others). Amazon, because they are in several industries, is a bit more unique. I read an article recently on how Amazon is going after consumer products. According to the Wall Street Journal, they established alliances with companies such as Proctor and Gamble to lower shipping costs, establish warehouses, and deliver goods to the end customer more quickly then doing it on their own. What they are doing is setting up shop inside Proctor and Gamble’s warehouses, thus reducing the cost of storing and transporting their goods. This program is called “Vendor Flex.” This is a great way to compete against the Wal-Mart’s of the world. Watch out grocery stores, Amazon is knocking on your customers door! (literally) In the end, Amazon recognizes where it is strong (e commerce) and utilizes partners where it lacks resources.

Microsoft is placing a big bet on hybrid cloud environments (big surprise..right?). They already have strategic partners with AT&T and the like to build out diverse scenarios, but they are also leveraging their biggest licensing program, the Enterprise Agreement (EA) to gain market share.  I won’t divulge into the Enterprise Agreement, you can read about it via the Microsoft website, but they are going after this group with a vengeance.  They took Office 365 and made it into a billion dollar business by leveraging partnerships and will do the same with Azure. They created incentives for system integrators to deploy it, had resellers promote it, and utilized their own licensing agreements to sell it.

I used to manage Office 365 (at the time BPOS) on the reseller side. I thought this was the perfect program for small companies that do not have the resources to manage an infrastructure. In a way that’s true, but I underestimated how larger companies can leverage hosted solutions. They utilize their existing volume licensing agreement and have certain departments off premise while others on premise. For companies that do not have the resources to configure it, they can use the partner channel to deploy it. Microsoft turned around Office 365, they will do the same with Azure, all the while leveraging their partners.

If players like Microsoft and Amazon have strategic alliances…shouldn’t you? Does your partner offer the resources you need to succeed or are they just less expensive? Do you have a white labeling program or consider white labeling yourself? How are you leveraging SPLA? Have you reached out to your vendors for support? How does your SPLA reseller help? If interested, you should attend the Microsoft Hosting Summit or attend Hosting Con, where resellers and partners connect. Check it out for yourself http://www.hostingcon.com. Reach out to me, I can help too! Maybe in the end I’m right, two heads can be better than one!

Thanks,

SPLA Man

 
2 Comments

Posted by on October 16, 2013 in In My Opinion

 

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No More Cloud!

08 Oct

Private cloud, public cloud, hybrid cloud, ominous cloud, or whatever the cloud, maybe now is the time to create a new buzz word to describe your offering.  People  have their own opinion on what “cloud” really means, and this leads to even more confusion. I believe the term “cloud” was first used by Eric Schmidt with Google, who in conversation said “cloud.”  (Don’t quote me on that).

Regardless of the kind of cloud you market, what you are really saying is “I have a solution to your problem that I can help you with.” It used to be the cloud was synonymous with storage. According to a recent Gartner study, over 50% of enterprises will have some sort of applications hosted somewhere else.  I can guarantee not all of that is storage!

Successful companies that host information for other organizations do more than just provide a cloud environment, they provide a solution. Companies who consider themselves a trusted solution provider as oppose to just a cloud provider (or even a service provider) will win. “Trusted” is the key word.  The biggest obstacle remains security.  Can they trust you with their data?

The question you need to ask yourself is what differentiates your offering from the 8,500 other hosting companies? Keep in mind -everyone is 99.9% uptime (yeah right). The entire IT landscape makes up roughly $2 trillion dollars. According to the Microsoft site, Azure signs up over 1,000 customers (not users) a day and Office 365 claims that one in four enterprise customers use it. It’s not just Microsoft. Take a look at Amazon, VMWare, and Google. Everyone wants to be “Cloud.” Check out http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/news/cloud/index.html

In my article, “Office 365 Under SPLA” I expressed you need to embrace the big players, not compete. As an example, Amazon and Azure will not deploy RDS, you need to provide RDS via SPLA. Maybe that’s an opportunity. Check out the FAQ guide for Azure http://www.windowsazure.com/en-us/pricing/licensing-faq/ (especially under RDS) They provide the infrastructure, you provide the RDS licenses to the customer. Maybe the SAL for SA SKU is your route – (which I might add is NEVER reported). SAL for SA is simply a way for your customer who already made the investment in software assurance on the underlying software to pay less.  There’s also license mobility with software assurance to consider.

Here’s my point in all of this- if the IT industry is 2 trillion dollars, I want you to get a piece of that very large pie.  To do that, you have to go beyond “cloud.”  Question to consider -what are you doing to help customers with their hosted solutions that no one else is doing today? Answer that intelligently, you will win.  Maybe this is the “Solution Provider Licensing Agreement” after all.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 
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Posted by on October 8, 2013 in In My Opinion

 

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Features of Lync

02 Oct

Here’s a little blurb on the features of Lync.  I think Call management/Lync is a HUGE opportunity for service providers.  Not a lot of companies host it today and organizations are not keen on deploying it in house.  Let me know if you are interested in learning more or hosting Lync today.   Love to hear about your offering.  

Lync can be used for license mobility and it there is an option for the SAL for SA option.  This is great if you have a multi-tenant (shared) infrastructure.  Below is directly from the SPUR.  New edition of the SPUR is at http://spur.microsoft.com/products.aspx

The available SAL types are:

  • Lync Server 2013 Standard SAL (User / Device)
  • Lync Server 2013 Enterprise SAL (User / Device)
  • Lync Server 2013 Plus SAL (User / Device)
  • Lync Server 2013 Enterprise Plus SAL (User / Device)
  • Productivity Suite SAL (User only)

You do not need SALs for any user or device that accesses your instances of the server software without being directly or indirectly authenticated by Active Directory, or Lync Server.

Standard SAL

 

Each user or device for whom you obtain a Standard SAL or Productivity Suite SAL (user only) may use the following features of the server software.

  • All Instant Messaging functionality
  • All Presence functionality
  • All Group Chat functionality
  • All PC-to-PC computer audio and video functionality
Enterprise SAL

 

Each user or device for whom you obtain an Enterprise SAL or Productivity Suite SAL (user only) may use the following features of the server software.

  • The features of the Standard SAL described above
  • All Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing functionality
  • All Desktop Sharing functionality
Plus SAL

 

Each user or device for whom you obtain a Plus SAL may use the following features of the server software.

  • The features of the Standard SAL described above
  • All Voice Telephony functionality
  • All Call Management functionality
Enterprise Plus SAL

 

Each user or device for whom you obtain an Enterprise Plus SAL may use the following features of the server software.

  • The features of the Standard SAL described above
  • All Audio, Video, and Web Conferencing functionality
  • All Desktop Sharing functionality
  • All Voice Telephony functionality
  • All Call Management functionality
 
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Posted by on October 2, 2013 in License Mobility, Lync

 

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How To Download SPLA Media and License Keys

17 Jul

You signed a SPLA agreement…now what?

When you sign a new SPLA, you will receive an acceptance notification from Microsoft via email.  This will be sent to the notices and/or primary contact on your agreement. The acceptance notification typically has the following in the subject line “Microsoft SPLA Acceptance Notice” It is sent from an unmanaged alias msvlop@microsoft.com.  You should receive a hardcopy of the SPLA agreement signed by Microsoft via courier .  Keep this for your records, it has your enrollment number and other relevant information.

All that being said, if you still have questions the good news is your browser/search engine directed you to the right place…this post!  To download media and license keys please go to https://licensing.microsoft.com.  This is the Volume Licensing Services Center (VLSC) website where everyone with a signed SPLA will have access.  You will need to log in with your email, follow the online steps, and you should be good to go.  One issue that comes up quite frequently is the person attempting to log in to the site does not have online administrative rights.  If you have this issue, please reach out to the primary contact on your agreement.  If you are the primary contact and do not have access, the odds are there’s an error somewhere in the system.  More times than not, the email address used on your agreement was inserted incorrectly.  Check your agreement to verify.  If this is the case, reach out to your reseller who can assist.  If everything checks out correctly and you still do not have access, please reach out to the VLSC directly either by email – VLSChelpa@microsoft.com or by phone 866-230-0560.  Please include your enrollment number. (found on your SPLA or ask your reseller).  I found this guide to be helpful.  (download VLSC guide) if you have questions.

If you are in the middle of completing an agreement, think about who in your organization you would like to be the online administrator (the one that has authorization and provides others in your organization access).  This will help eliminate future issues!

Keep in mind some products do not have license keys (keys will be embedded in the media) – Exchange, SQL, and CRM are examples.  RDS licenses will require you to enter your enrollment number, not a license key.

Hope this helps!

SPLA Man Read the rest of this entry »

 
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Posted by on July 17, 2013 in License Keys and Media, Uncategorized

 

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Reporting SPLA Usage

16 Jul

Managing the SPLA program for as long as I have, I came to the conclusion that no one likes to report their SPLA.  For what it’s worth, Microsoft and resellers don’t like it either, but it’s the most important aspect of the SPLA program.  Here’s a list of reasons why you need to report on time.

  • It’s unlawful if you don’t report.  Think about this for a moment,  you did not pay for the licenses upfront, but you are charging customers for their access.  In some countries, that’s called stealing.
  • It is part of your signed North America SPLA agreement.   Page 11 section 11a –  “Customer must submit either a monthly use report or zero use report to its Reseller within 10 days after the last day of each month or on a date agreed to by the Customer and its Reseller.”
  • After the 10th, Microsoft runs audit checks.  This doesn’t mean you will automatically get audited, but it does mean Microsoft will be keeping a closer eye on what you report.
  • If you report on the 10th and your credit card has issues or you are on credit hold, the reseller cannot submit it to Microsoft.  That’s one reason you should report prior to the 10th to avoid any errors.
  • Make it routine – you pay your cable bill each month, you should pay your SPLA as well.
  • It’s the cost of doing business
  • Any way you slice it, you have to report something

I understand that no one likes to report.  In a lot of instances it’s your biggest cost as a company.  My advice is always report, the cost of your monthly licensing spend is a lot less than the cost of an audit!  Hope this helps.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 
4 Comments

Posted by on July 16, 2013 in Compliance, SPLA Reporting

 

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RDS Licensing Explained

07 Jul

This article has been moved to our new platform:

RDS and other licensing related white papers: https://mscloudlicensing.com/document-library/

RDS licensing questions from the community

https://mscloudlicensing.com/forum/

RDS Blog Article

https://mscloudlicensing.com/blog-articles/

 
11 Comments

Posted by on July 7, 2013 in RDS

 

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