* * Beatles-Beatles is one of many to let us know that Microsoft has changed how they handle licensing for Windows Server and related products with regards to virtual machine environments. The new regiment will allow per-processor licensing to be handled based on the number of virtual processors rather than the number of physical processors in the computer. Microsoft Adopts Virtual Licenses Log in/Create an Account | Top | 225 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 225 comments 0: 213 comments 1: 164 comments 2: 122 comments 3: 48 comments 4: 29 comments 5: 19 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:5, Funny) by donnacha (161610) <slashdot.org@noSPam.donnacha.com> on Monday October 10, @07:18PM (#13760288) Great, I guess this means I'll continue to depend upon my own virtual licensing scheme, based on the amount of warez I can download. [ Reply to ThisRe:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by Altephfour (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:19PM Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:4, Insightful) by psyon1 (572136) on Monday October 10, @07:27PM (#13760351) (http://www.psyon.org/) Why not just use free alternatives? [ Reply to This | ParentRe:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by Pfhreakaz0id (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:36PM Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme (Score:4, Funny) by pallmall1 (882819) on Monday October 10, @08:34PM (#13760758) I've got a life. I just can't remember what directory it's in. [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by whizack (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:44PMRe:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by qqtortqq (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:48PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by HermanAB (Score:2)Monday October 10, @11:00PMRe:My Own Virtual Licensing Scheme by Yocto Yotta (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:39PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Good for them (Score:5, Insightful) by nacs (658138) on Monday October 10, @07:51PM (#13760480) This kind of thing only benefits opensource so I approve. The more ridiculous their licensing gets, the more businesses will look to open source solutions ( Linux + Xen or Linux + UML, etc). I love this quote from the article:The shift will benefit customers, Microsoft says.Higher prices 'benefit' consumers. I'll have to remember that one. </sarcasm> [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Good for them by neural cooker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:27PMRe:Good for them by mjm1231 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:39PMRe:Good for them by acvh (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:40PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Good for them by StikyPad (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:54PMRe:Good for them by fastgood (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:30PMRe:Good for them by Anonymous Coward (Score:3)Monday October 10, @09:44PMRe:Good for them by pgnas (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:33PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Well... (Score:5, Interesting) by justsomebody (525308) on Monday October 10, @07:19PM (#13760294) (Last Journal: Thursday January 15, @07:55PM) Either is that greed talking or they feel that people cheat with terminal servers to avoid buying OS licenses. [ Reply to This Re:Well... (Score:5, Informative) by James_Aguilar (890772) on Monday October 10, @08:25PM (#13760691) (Last Journal: Monday August 01, @11:26PM) RTFA? It will reduce costs for most companies. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:Well... (Score:5, Funny) by imr (106517) on Monday October 10, @08:47PM (#13760835) On slashdot we only virtually read the articles, that's our policy. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Well... by James_Aguilar (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:52PMRe:Well... by Anonymous Coward (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:49PMRe:Well... by Thundersnatch (Score:2)Tuesday October 11, @12:27AMRe:Well... by perdurabo0 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:49PMRe:Well... by James_Aguilar (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:55PMRe:Well... by Khan (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:13PMRe:Well... by adtifyj (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:12PMI see by WindBourne (Score:2)Tuesday October 11, @12:27AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Well... by Jugalator (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:36PMRe:How is that cheating? by Anonymous Coward (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:53PMRe:How is that cheating? by mboverload (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:25PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:How is that cheating? by Ruprecht the Monkeyb (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:07PMRe:How is that cheating? by WinPimp2K (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:32PMYou lost me here. by usurper_ii (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:56PMRe:How is that cheating? by zerocool^ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:54PMRe: 2003 SBS Server by reezle (Score:2)Tuesday October 11, @12:03AM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re: How is that cheating? Yeah, but by usurper_ii (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:42PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. How will this work for Windows? (Score:2, Interesting) by mike.newton (67123) on Monday October 10, @07:19PM (#13760304) (http://mike.eire.ca/) So if I have a server with a dual-core processor, I have to pay twice the price for Windows? With SQL Server or something else, you can limit it to only run on one processor, but not Windows. [ Reply to ThisThe way this works for windows... by electrosoccertux (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:25PM Re:The way this works for windows... (Score:5, Informative) by Joe5678 (135227) on Monday October 10, @07:28PM (#13760356) This is true, but so is the opposite situation (which is probably more likely a situation).If you have a four CPU server running 6 virtual OS's, if you only want SQL Server on one of those OS's you only need one copy, where as before if you wanted it on 1 you had to buy four copies. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:The way this works for windows... (Score:5, Informative) by malfunct (120790) on Monday October 10, @07:36PM (#13760413) (http://programmers.malfunct.net/) More to the point you had to buy a 4 cpu licence for that single virtual server even though most virtual servers only virtualize a single processor and so you were paying the 4 cpu price for a 1cpu equivalent server.To address the comment about dual core processors I am pretty darn sure I read in the past that Microsoft had adopted a policy of treating a single dual core processor as 1 cpu and not 2. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:The way this works for windows... by addaon (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:01PMRe:The way this works for windows... by fastgood (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:33PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:5, Informative) by TheSHAD0W (258774) on Monday October 10, @07:25PM (#13760338) (http://www.shambala.net) Actually, all the base versions of XP (AFAIK) are licensed for 1-2 processors. You can see it on the XP stick-on label. A 4-core machine might cost you more though. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:How will this work for Windows? by merreborn (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:03PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by pcsmith811 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:15PMNo. Per processor, not core. by kcb93x (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:28PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:4, Informative) by Joe5678 (135227) on Monday October 10, @07:25PM (#13760339) Just a side note that although you can set SQL Server to run on only one processor, if the machine has two processors you are required to buy two processor licenses. At least under the old system. I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not. I don't think any of our SQL Server boxes have dual processors, but I certainly wouldn't pay for two licenses unless I was running it on both processors.I somehow doubt this licensing applies to "virtual" processors in a standard server (not a virtual machine), at least that was the stance they had taken previously. [ Reply to This | Parent Re:How will this work for Windows? (Score:5, Insightful) by BrynM (217883) * on Monday October 10, @07:41PM (#13760431) (http://www.networkoftheapes.net/ | Last Journal: Sunday May 22, @06:09AM) I'm not sure if this new system covers that situation or not. Exactly. Licensing gets easier under the new system, which most people postig seem to have missed (RTFA people).As you said, under the old system, you were charged for each processor. Thus, a server with two physical processors was charged for two processor licenses for SQL Server even though you were only running it on one. The situation now lets you simply purchase a single license for each CPU you are _actually running it on_. Despite everyone shouting greed, this is a rare occasion of MS doing what the customers (Corp Customers) have been asking for for a long time. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:How will this work for Windows? by Anonymous Coward (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:14PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by BrynM (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:32PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by The Bungi (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:46PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by Trepalium (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:36PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by kcb93x (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:42PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by quantum bit (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:39PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by CastrTroy (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:24PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by name773 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:12PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by CastrTroy (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:19PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by man_of_mr_e (Score:2)Monday October 10, @11:12PMIt's the number of INSTANCES you run by the_skywise (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:27PMRe:It's the number of INSTANCES you run by Sancho (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:11PMHyperthreading != vmware by tepples (Score:1)Monday October 10, @07:28PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by kebes (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:30PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by adtifyj (Score:1)Monday October 10, @09:44PMRe:How will this work for Windows? by bushidocoder (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:49PM wow. (Score:5, Funny) by Spy der Mann (805235) <spydermann DOT slashdot AT gmail DOT com> on Monday October 10, @07:20PM (#13760307) (Last Journal: Tuesday September 06, @05:16PM) They DID find a way to get even more money from their customers. And when we thought they were over, they finally did something innovative. [ Reply to ThisRe:wow. by justsomebody (Score:3)Monday October 10, @07:23PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.2 replies beneath your current threshold. I don't get it. (Score:4, Interesting) by Poromenos1 (830658) on Monday October 10, @07:22PM (#13760318) (http://porocrom.poromenos.org/) Is this supposed to be cheaper? Unless people were running one virtual machine per dual-processor box, they will now be paying more. Isn't the purpose of virtualization to run multiple servers on one box, so one user can't access the other? Am I very confused? [ Reply to ThisRe:I don't get it. by VertigoAce (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:41PMRe:I don't get it. by msevior (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:08PMRe:I don't get it. by timeOday (Score:2)Monday October 10, @11:12PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. fill free to count (Score:2, Funny) by big.iron.wiz (773525) <muitos.nanet@blogger.com> on Monday October 10, @07:23PM (#13760324) Other possible ways to count:- MB per instalation;- Number of temp files created and not deleted;- Number of blue screen of death;- Number of Bluetooth devices you won't use after upgrading service pack;- Number of Linux Admin that will nag you for using Bill Gates OS; ... [ Reply to This This, of course, means war (Score:5, Funny) by oGMo (379) on Monday October 10, @07:26PM (#13760342) I guess the answer for this is to start paying for virtual licenses with virtual money. [ Reply to ThisRe:This, of course, means war by joe90 (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:36PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. Great! (Score:5, Funny) by Cytlid (95255) * on Monday October 10, @07:26PM (#13760343) (http://geexology.org/ | Last Journal: Monday September 12, @10:10PM) This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right? [ Reply to This Re:Great! (Score:5, Insightful) by isotope23 (210590) on Monday October 10, @07:33PM (#13760387) (http://newlibertarian.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Monday July 18, @03:23PM) "This means they'll be accepting virtual money, right?"Yeah, they're called federal reserve notes.... [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Great! by mindtriggerz (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:50PMRe:Great! by rubycodez (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:48PMIt's actually an old story by Chemisor (Score:3)Monday October 10, @09:38PM MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here: (Score:5, Informative) by MelloDawg (180509) on Monday October 10, @07:34PM (#13760390) http://blogs.msdn.com/virtual_pc_guy/archive/2005/ 10/10/479186.aspx [msdn.com] Also check out his great series on running old games under Virtual PC. [ Reply to ThisFor old games by Sycraft-fu (Score:2)Monday October 10, @07:53PMRe:For old games by HunterZ (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:20PMRe:MS Virtual PC blogger talks about it here: by BushCheney08 (Score:1)Monday October 10, @08:54PM Obviously a tough decision... (Score:5, Funny) by kaschei (701750) on Monday October 10, @07:35PM (#13760400) From TFA:Under Microsoft's existing licensing policy, the maximum number of licenses that a customer has to buy for one application is equivalent to the total number of processors in the box, Park said.Microsoft struggled with that fact, said Zane Adam, a director of marketing in the company's Windows Server group.Translation: "It was a tough call, but we decided not to limit the amount of money we can charge to run the same code. It wasn't an easy decision, but we'll take your money after all." [ Reply to ThisRe:Obviously a tough decision... by James_Aguilar (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:41PMRe:Obviously a tough decision... by kaschei (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:00PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Now Microsoft will really be able to compete! (Score:2, Funny) by Helpadingoatemybaby (629248) on Monday October 10, @07:36PM (#13760411) As a Microsoft customer I feel this should really simplify things for me. Now my TCO between Linux and Windows will be much better and favor Microsoft! I can easily understand paying hundreds of dollars for a virtual process (which means, of course, a process that would be like a virtual machine, you know, a bunch of threads -- which I'm running now, but they're not actually a bunch of machine-like threads, well, they are, since they're on my machine, but they're not, like separate machines. If I were to say, run an emulator on my machine then I should pay Microsoft... wait... okay, now I'm getting confused.Maybe I'd better start with the Linus Torvald's "per-seat cheek" licencing plan. Okay, I've got my spreadsheet out and I'm adding up the column marked "Zero." Now keep in mind that is PER PROCESSOR! Not per thread. No wait... that's per cheek. Dang formula! Can someone please clarify for me how this will help Microsoft be more competitive, especially on the server side where they've taken a hit from Linux? I know everybody likes complicated and expensive licencing schemes, but still! [ Reply to This Whatever. (Score:1, Offtopic) by Renraku (518261) on Monday October 10, @07:44PM (#13760444) (http://slashdot.org/) What counts as a 'virtual processor'?A GPU? SPU? Fax modem processor? Those are all processors in the literal term. Do I have to pay twice because my job title is 'document processor'? [ Reply to This1 reply beneath your current threshold. For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative) by Deathlizard (115856) on Monday October 10, @07:45PM (#13760453) (http://fryedsoft.calc.org/ | Last Journal: Monday May 30, @12:08AM) 1) This change affects only virtual processors, not physical ones. If your running VMWare or MS Virtual Server than this is for you. Otherwise move along.2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM's3) Windows Server 2003 R2 Enterprise Edition is now licenced for 4 instances of itself per Machine. So you could run 4 Windows 2K3 Servers VM's on one server and MS says "go for it"The Details from the Horse at MS [microsoft.com] [ Reply to This Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:5, Informative) by LexNaturalis (895838) on Monday October 10, @07:56PM (#13760503) Thank you! You basically saved me from having to write the same thing. I read the article in ~15 seconds and realized that ~99% of the posters had failed to even give the article a cursory scan. Microsoft does something to -save- people money and yet people still complain. Amazing! [ Reply to This | ParentRe:For those that didn't read the article. by KillShill (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:56PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:For those that didn't read the article. by publicworker (Score:1)Monday October 10, @10:12PMRe:For those that didn't read the article. by semenzato (Score:1)Monday October 10, @11:45PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:For those that didn't read the article. by jd (Score:2)Monday October 10, @08:00PMRe:For those that didn't read the article. by RomulusNR (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:31PMRe:For those that didn't read the article. by pla (Score:3)Monday October 10, @08:43PM Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative) by nachoboy (107025) on Monday October 10, @09:37PM (#13761087) True, and thank you for the clarification - But you've overlooked one particular group of users that might earn the sympathy of a Slashdotter or two - Developers.In a mid-to-large business environment, you might well break a 16-way system up into four 4-way virtual machines. In a dev enviromenment, however, we frequenly do the exact opposite - Try to simuate conditions of 16 systems on a single physical RAM-heavy 4-way machine.So what effect does this have, on the development side? Exactly one - Small-time developers (meaning any person/group/company with a single-digit number of physical (not virtual) human members) will now have a much harder time (legally) developing software that scales up well. Not that most dev teams bother with licensing, but still, most people prefer running legal...Congratulations, Microsoft - With a single cryptic (and spinnable) change in server licensing, you have destroyed any legal "enterprise" level development by individuals, small teams, or anyone with a budget where "Taco Bell" counts as a significant budgetary line item.If Microsoft really wanted to give up profit, they could have, with a single license clause, capped the cost at the physical CPU equivalent. But, oddly enough, they didn't. Hmm...These licensing changes are for companies who are using virtualization in production environments. If you are even a small-time developer, it makes sense for you to purchase an MSDN subscription (prices range from about $500 to $2500 for a year, depending on the products you need). MSDN recently included Virtual Server amongst its offerings. A few points about MSDN subscriptions:- You subscribe for one year, which gives you a starter set of all software on CD/DVD, plus 12 months of updates mailed to you and access to the download site.- MSDN licenses are *perpetual*. Even after your subscription lapses, all the software you have is still fully licensed and legal. It can even be resold (must go as an entire unit though).- Retail subscriptions come with retail keys, which generally means 10 activations. If you ever run out, though, I've found you can just give them a ring and they'll give you another key to use. Subscriptions purchased under volume licenses come with volume license keys and no activation.- The license is a free-for-all for development and test purposes. From the EULA [microsoft.com]: "For purposes of designing, developing, testing, and demonstrating your software product(s) ... Microsoft grants you a limited, nonexclusive, royalty-free license to make, use, and install the Server Software for any individual Server Software on any number of Servers."None of these licensing changes affect developers who are running software for development and testing purposes. Accuse Microsoft of gouging real customers if you must, but developers get a pretty sweet deal with MSDN. [ Reply to This | Parent1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:For those that didn't read the article. (Score:4, Informative) by bill_mcgonigle (4333) * on Monday October 10, @09:34PM (#13761068) (http://www.bfccomputing.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday March 10, @06:57PM) 2)This licencing scheme is designed to save companies money instead of giving up more for MS. For example, say you have a 16 processor system, and you VMWare it so your running 4 instances of Windows Server 2003 with SQL server. under the old system, you had to buy SQL Server for all 16 Processors. Now you would only buy for the 4 VM'sWell, that's one very rare scenario. A more common one is I have 4 VMWare instances running Windows on 1 CPU. I'm working on consolidating 12 lightly-used servers onto 12 VMWare sessions on a 4-CPU machine.Server consolidation through virtualization is a popular trend and Microsoft is capitalizing on it. We were buying 1 license per VM anyway, so no change here. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:For those that didn't read the article. by CXI (Score:2)Monday October 10, @09:57PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Limiting an app to one processor? (Score:4, Insightful) by phallstrom (69697) on Monday October 10, @07:47PM (#13760459) Don't know much about it, but how would they handle the situation where I'd limit say Windows to VCPU 1 and Office to VCPU 2.Seems like I should only have to pay the single VCPU price, but I imagine that won't be the case will it... [ Reply to ThisRe: Limiting an app to one processor? by usurper_ii (Score:2)Monday October 10, @10:12PM Explain this to me. (Score:1) by Solkre (787360) on Monday October 10, @07:49PM (#13760473)