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Tag Archives: Windows 2016

More SPLA Questions…More Answers.

13 Oct

Here is a list of some of the questions we received this month.  Enjoy!

Why does Microsoft not allow a SPLA SQL VM to be installed in a public cloud?  I understand if you were licensing the physical layer, but if you want to install on a VM, you can easily allocate the number of cores and report accordingly.  Any ideas?

No.  Honestly there is no reason outside of it’s just prohibited.  You cannot license SPLA cores/processors in public clouds even if the VM is dedicated.

What can be installed in Azure through SPLA licensing?

Anything that is licensed by SAL can be moved to Azure.  For your end customers, anything that has Software Assurance and is license mobility eligible can be transferred including: Windows 10 E3  (QMTH), Office 365 Pro Plus (QMTH) and MSDN.  Your end customers can also leverage Azure HUB to get discounted pricing for the Windows Servers they purchased with SA.   Check out the Azure FAQ site https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/pricing/licensing-faq/

Is Microsoft going to discontinue SPLA?

Nah.  I bet it will be merged into a new program though.  Just a hunch.

I received a compliance notification the other day.  Am I in trouble?

Depends on the type of notification and if you are out of compliant :).  If you have questions, we can review it with you.  Just email info@splalicensing.com

Can I report Windows 2016 but run Windows 2012?

Yes.  No problem there.  What you cannot do is license Windows 2012 and run 2016.  Don’t do that.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 

 

 

 

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Posted by on October 13, 2017 in Top 5 Licensing Questions

 

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Core Licensing for Windows and SQL

11 Apr

Article update (April, 2018 ) This article can be found at https://mscloudlicensing.com/2018/03/06/licensing-sql-2016-and-windows-2016/  We review best practices in reducing audit exposure, use rights and guidelines for SPLA licensing.

 

 

 
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Posted by on April 11, 2017 in SQL 2016, Windows 2016, Windows Virtualization

 

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Top 5 SPLA Licensing Questions in March 2017

05 Apr

There’s March madness in college basketball and March madness in licensing.  College basketball is over, but licensing is just getting started.  In this post, I completed a list of the top 5 questions in SPLA.  Enjoy!

1.  Can we offer a customer dedicated VMs where they can have Windows-admin access? We want to offer the OS-plattform and let the customer handle applications etc themselves

No.  You can offer dedicated VMs, but unless a customer is transferring their licenses over to your datacenter, they should not have admin access.  Amazon does a good job of explaining this.  Check it out here

2.   I am looking at licensing SQL in Azure.  My question is can we run multiple     instances on a single VM or is it 1 instance per VM?  How can we reduce our consumption?

Yes. You can run multiple instances on a single VM to reduce the number of VM’s deployed.  This works with Azure, AWS, or even your own datacenter.

3.   If we have a hypervisor running 2012r2 datacenter edition. Can I install server 2016 on a VM or does the hyper visor also have to be 2016?

You can install the VM with 2016 but the entire host must be licensed by core if you do. (even if you are also running 2012) Remember with 2016, there is an 8- core minimum per physical processor and is sold in packs of 2 cores.

4. I have a production SQL server fully licenced. We will be introducing a second server that will only receive SQL transaction logs throughout the day. It’s not a hot standby, not even a warm standby.  Does it require a license?

As long as that server is passive, log shipping is allowed.  

5. We are a cloud hosting provider and find it very frustrating in regard to Office 365 and not being able to use SCA.  Any help?

There are specific requirements to become CSP Tier 1.  I will say Microsoft has made the requirements easier as it pertains to support.  If you are having difficulty becoming CSP Tier 1, it may help to look at partnering.  Let us know.  info@splalicensing.com

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 
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Posted by on April 5, 2017 in Top 5 Licensing Questions

 

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Azure Stack, SQL Stretch Database and the Hosting Summit

27 Mar

Last month, Microsoft held their annual Hosting Summit in Bellevue, WA. The good news is SPLA is not going away. Last quarter marked the 20th straight QTR of double digit growth for Microsoft SPLA. What is changing is the competitive landscape. Microsoft does not see SPLA partners as a competitor per se, they see SPLA as one of the biggest competitive advantages over other cloud offerings (IBM, AWS, Google, etc). They have over 30,000 SPLA partners worldwide, and they believe they can leverage those 30,000 partners to offer different cloud solutions.

Microsoft is betting big on what they define as “hybrid cloud” and that’s where they see service providers (SPLA) playing a significant part. Hybrid cloud is not just offloading workloads from on premise to another datacenter, it’s about leveraging different technologies to deliver solutions. As an example, late last year Microsoft offered solution called “Azure Stack” You can read about it here.

It’s the same APIs and same code as what Microsoft delivers through Azure. From a licensing perspective, Azure Stack is cheaper through SPLA (Windows) than it would be to pay through consumption. It will be available to offer this summer through the hardware manufacturers but you can download it now to test out.

The other big bet is SQL, and especially around the feature of stretch database. In laymen terms, it’s taking data that is not often consumed and offloading it to the cloud, reducing resources and consumption on servers locally.   You can read more about stretch database from our friends at MSDN

All said, it was good to meet old friends and say hello to new ones at this event.  If you were at the hosting summit and you did not have the chance to meet the infamous SPLA Man, email me at info@splalicensing.com.  Would love to learn more about your offerings and how we can work together to make licensing simple.

Thanks for reading,

SPLA Man

 
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Posted by on March 27, 2017 in Azure, In My Opinion, SQL 2016

 

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Worried about Windows 2016 Cores?

09 Sep

Yes, it’s the talk of the town.  “Windows 2016!  Oh my!  It’s moving to cores!!!”  That part is true.  What is NOT true is even when Windows 2016 is released, it doesn’t mean you have to license by core – you can still license by processor for all 2012 and earlier editions.  The catch?  Once your agreement expires and you sign a new SPLA after October 1st (when Windows 2016 is released) you must license by core regardless which version you are running.

So what does this mean to you?  If I was a service provider that reports over 2k in Windows and SQL licenses,  I might readjust when my SPLA expires to extend processor based licensing.   Wait…What?   You can readjust when my SPLA agreement expires?  Sure.  I’m SPLA Man.  Anything is possible with SPLA Man.

Thanks for reading,

Windows 2016 Man

 
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Posted by on September 9, 2016 in Windows 2016

 

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