Quick Explanation?

I'm considering Small Business Server 200X for our office. Back in the
day, when NT 4.0 was the thing to run, there were two types of
licensing - per server and per seat.

How does microsoft currently license their server technology?

I have an office with 7 people, potentially 11 more VPN'ing in to join
the network. I don't know if concurrent connections, etc... affect
the terms.

OBD

Dave
Fri Jan 13 16:15:41 CST 2006

With SBS 2003 licensing, you get a choice of User or Device licenses. Users
are actual living people - for example I'm a user, but Administrator, the
backup account, etc. are not. Devices are any hardware that connects to the
network and authenticates - for example computers, PDAs, smartphones, but
not print servers.

So if you have a single computer that's shared by 5 users, it would need
either 1 Device CAL or 5 User CALs.

If you have a single user with a work desktop, home desktop, laptop, and
PDA, that would be 1 User CAL or 4 Device CALs.

It's generally recommended to choose one or the other, but you can mix. I
like user CALs because I keep track of them with the number of people on
payroll. For us, just given the number of home computers that are logging
in remotely, user CALs are the way to go. And that's not even considering
the laptops and PDAs. For shared computers such as conference room laptops,
I could give them a Device CAL, but since everyone who uses them already has
a User CAL, I don't have to. BTW, concurrent connections no longer matter
as they did in prior versions - every user or device needs a CAL regardless
of how many or few are in use at the same time.

FYI, for future reference, the SBS 2003 group is
microsoft.public.windows.server.sbs. And, this is just my understanding of
licensing. There's a lot more in the SBS FAQ
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/techinfo/overview/generalfaq.mspx.

I hope you end up deciding on SBS 2003, and looking forward to your posts as
you get started.


"Nick Dangr" <oggie.ben.doggie@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137177396.702392.250380@g14g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> I'm considering Small Business Server 200X for our office. Back in the
> day, when NT 4.0 was the thing to run, there were two types of
> licensing - per server and per seat.
>
> How does microsoft currently license their server technology?
>
> I have an office with 7 people, potentially 11 more VPN'ing in to join
> the network. I don't know if concurrent connections, etc... affect
> the terms.
>
> OBD
>

Nick
Tue Jan 17 14:05:11 CST 2006

That's terrific - another quick question then relating to the User
versus Device CAL - you mentioned they could be intermixed - if you add
users in the future is it difficult to modify the number of CAL's to
accommodate?

For instance, I have 19 users now and want to add 3 more in the future
- is adding those 3 difficult or are the CALs sold in blocks?

I'd move this discussion over to the other group but I'm using google
groups for the moment.

Dave
Thu Jan 19 11:40:37 CST 2006

The CALs are sold in 5 packs, so for 19 you need 20 and for 22 you need 25.
Plus one each for other servers. You just buy the appropriate ones, and
enter the codes on the licensing page of the SBS console. I recommend
against trusting any vendor to send you the correct CALs - Dell is notorious
in this regard, but few vendors really seem to understand SBS licensing. Go
to http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/howtobuy/pricing.mspx and
get the exact SKU of the licenses you need, and order them that way to keep
from getting the wrong ones.

You can mix them - I think MS recommends against it due to the confusion
factor, as if anything could make the topic of licensing more confusing : -)

I'd just keep a quick excel spreadsheet or something listing the users who
have User CALs and the devices that have Device CALs. For me, I've only got
one user without her own dedicated PC. For everybody but her, it was a
toss-up since it was one user, one device. But for the remote users, having
to assign device CALs to the home PCs was enough to put me into the User
camp. Plus now I don't have to keep track as long as I have as many CALs as
I do people on payroll.


"Nick Dangr" <oggie.ben.doggie@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1137528311.675687.183430@g43g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> That's terrific - another quick question then relating to the User
> versus Device CAL - you mentioned they could be intermixed - if you add
> users in the future is it difficult to modify the number of CAL's to
> accommodate?
>
> For instance, I have 19 users now and want to add 3 more in the future
> - is adding those 3 difficult or are the CALs sold in blocks?
>
> I'd move this discussion over to the other group but I'm using google
> groups for the moment.
>