Windows Server 2012 Licensing

Season -3

By

Aravindan R

Edition in Windows 2012

There are 4 Edition available,they are

Foundation Essentials Standard Datacenter

Foundation

Used for small businesses

Upto 15 users can access

Foundation edition can be implemented in environments where features such as file sharing, printer sharing, security and remote access are required.

Foundation edition cannot upgrade to other editions

Foundation

Advanced server features such as Hyper V, dynamic memory, IPAM (IP Address Management), hot add memory, windows update services and failover clustering are not available in the Foundation edition

Essentials

Used for small businesses

Up to 25 users can access

Unlike Foundation Edition it support features like Hyper V, dynamic memory and hot add/remove RAM

Cost of Essentials Edition is $425/server

Standard Edition

Ideal for small and medium business No limits on number of users Full windows functionality with two virtual

machines allowed Advanced features such as certificate services

role, Hyper V, RODC (Read Only Domain Controller), IPAM (IP Address Management), failover clustering

Cost of standard edition is $882/ 2 processor server

Datacenter

There is no functionality difference between Standard and Datacenter edition

They actually differ virtualization rights In standard there is only 2 virtual machine

allowed whereas in datacenter edition there is no such limit.

Datacenter is ideal for environments with extensive use of virtualization technology

Cost of Datacenter edition is $4,809 per 2 processor server

Licensing Model

Foundation : OEM (Original Equipment manufacture) per server, need to buy license at the time of purchasing the server

Essentials : OEM and in retail store (per server)

Standard and Datacenter : Processor based + CAL

Each Software license covers upto 2 physical processors on a single server

The standard and datacenter editions of Server 2012 support Client Access License (CAL) licensing model.

When a CAL license is assigned to a user it

allow that user to access the server via any device

Reference

Www.microsoft.com http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/data-center/microsoft-announces-four-windows-server-2012-editions-what-you-need-to-know/

Let see about Types of CAL in upcoming week