SQL Server Licensing Advise

[Allen]

This should hopefully be a quick question to answer, hopefully from someone with good knowledge of SQL licensing (yet again, MS licensing is doing my head in).

We have a new application and website being developed, both will connect to the same database in SQL (2012 R2 Standard). Multiple users will connect to either the app or website at the same time.

The problem I have is licensing for the SQL server. I have spoken to two companies now, Ebuyer and Insight, both of which say different things. One thought is that we will need a server and client based license (as there are two "users" connecting to SQL, the web server and the app server, we will only need 2 CALs) and another thought is that we will need a core based license (a VM with 4 cores, so a 4 core license). The costs for these vary wildly as I'm sure you can imagine, around £1k vs £5k.

Another point to consider is mobility of the VM. Although we don't have VMware licensing for HA and vMotion yet, it will be coming soon, so we need to consider that. I believe Software Assurance covers this (I think that's what Splash told me in my last post about licensing)? Can you purchase that afterwards?

Thanks again guys... I'll be an MS licensing expert soon!

[Splash]

On my way back from a client meeting, but I'll read properly and respond when I get home Allen.

[Allen]

Cheers Splash!

[Splash]

Couple of questions for you while I travel: who is accessing the website and app? External user connector may be more cost effective, dependent on number of users, but that won't fly if they're internal users.

How many people accessing for each access method?

You don't need SA to allow for HA as standard licensing allows for failure. You *do* need it for manual migrations and DRS (ie non-failure situations) more often than every 90 days.

[Allen]

Couple of questions for you while I travel: who is accessing the website and app? External user connector may be more cost effective, dependent on number of users, but that won't fly if they're internal users.

At the moment, we have no idea how many external users will connect to it. It's for a support ticketing system. Most customers are used to calling and/or emailing though, I expect it will stay that way for a while. So 1 concurrent at a guess? We're not super busy.

How many people accessing for each access method?

Internally on the app will be up to 10 users at a time, more as the company grows.

You don't need SA to allow for HA as standard licensing allows for failure. You *do* need it for manual migrations and DRS (ie non-failure situations) more often than every 90 days.

Ooh, handy to know, thanks!

[Splash]

At the moment, we have no idea how many external users will connect to it. It's for a support ticketing system. Most customers are used to calling and/or emailing though, I expect it will stay that way for a while. So 1 concurrent at a guess? We're not super busy.

Looks like an external connector license would work best for the external users - it's specified users rather than concurrent I'm afraid for user/device CALS, whereas an external connector is a single license per server with unlimited (external) users.

Internally on the app will be up to 10 users at a time, more as the company grows.

10 users CALs makes sense for this in that case - I don't think that per-core licensing would make much financial sense (do however get costs from your Microsoft partner if you have one though - if you don't and might be interested in chatting to our guys drop me a pm with a little more info about your business and I'll put someone in touch, but don't feel like you have to do this [I don't want to be getting shouted at for pimping the company I work for on here, so I'll mention no names]. Dependent on the size of the company it might be worth picking up some sort of corporate licensing rather than always buying off the shelf from an etailer - other MS partners are of course available!)

Ooh, handy to know, thanks!

Yeah, I was interested when I found that little nugget too. 90 days is obviously designed to make it useless for moving a VM for patching of your hypervisor (if using Hyper-V, anyways. though I'm patching ESXi hosts a lot at the moment after theOpenSSL gubbins).

Again, I don't proffer to be a licensing expert because I don't have a first-born to have signed away in order to gain that level of knowledge as to the dark arts but I do know a reasonable amount and can always ask an expert on your behalf.

[scaryjim]

tbh, it sounds like a very small scale installation in which case SQL Server Express might well be good enough, and is license free. I've used Express extensively for data-driven web-based stuff and never had any issues. Unless there are very specific reasons for paying for SQL Server (features that are only available on the other editions, or you're looking for particular support directly from MS), I don't see why you wouldn't run with Express edition....

[Splash]

Also a good point there Jim - SSE now scales way more than it historically used to (up to 10Gb per database now) and makes sense for a lot of smaller implementations if you don't need the more advanced functionality of full fat SQL server (like SQL agent, online restore, log shipping, SQL mail etc - more on what you do and don't get with SSE at http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/libr...sql.105).aspx)

[Allen]

It is reasonably small scale in it's usage, but the application itself is going to do a lot more than just ticketing and the developer has already stated that Express won't cut the mustard.

Also, they only work with MS SQL, no other DB package, so no MySQL or Postgre.

[scaryjim]

It is reasonably small scale in it's usage, but the application itself is going to do a lot more than just ticketing and the developer has already stated that Express won't cut the mustard.

Also, they only work with MS SQL, no other DB package, so no MySQL or Postgre.

Get a second opinion from a different developer? Or is this someone in-house?

[shaithis]

When you have users connecting externally, especially when you don't know exactly how many will be connecting, I have always favoured the CPU/core licensing.

The problem you have is that until you know how many users will be connecting, it's very difficult to determine the lowest licensing cost and you are going to have to gamble with CALs vs cores. Might be worth finding out where the costs intersect and take a guess at whether you think you will go over that many users.

[Allen]

Sent you a PM Splash.

Scary, it's a developer called Cherwell. I am still waiting to see if they can confirm what licensing we need.

Thanks for your help so far everyone, I will get to the bottom of this, even if it means calling M$ itself! In fact, I'm gonna try that now!

[scaryjim]

Personally I'd be finding out why your company is using Cherwell, what alternatives were considered, and why the cost of SQL licensing wasn't investigated before Cherwell were chosen for the project.

Certainly if they're an external provider they should be telling you what you need to get and how much it's likely to cost, or they should be arranging the hosting and services and passing on the cost to you. They shouldn't be saying "You'll need SQL server, go and sort it yourselves" - very poor customer service. Someone did that to me I'd be looking for a new provider straight away....