Microsoft Licensing for VDI – A.K.A: extortion

Feb 18th, 2009
by Sean Clark.

 

There has been some confusion about VDI licensing over that last year and a half.  Just wanted to set the record straight and point us all to the definitive resources at M$ and offer my expertise in the matter.   I setup our Microsoft Enterprise Agreement (EA) at my previous employer and have been painfully aware of the licensing hoops for the last few years.  I’m no know-it-all, but I have gone through the pain and would like to share my knowledge to help people out.

In a nutshell, to do anything “cool” with virtual desktops (VMware View, XenDesktop, vWorkspace), you need Vista licensed with software assurance.  Only then can you buy a VECD license and proceed with cool solution involving streaming OSes or virtualizing XP.  VECD = Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop, in case you are not following me.

For enterprises, this is less of a problem since they likely already have a EA with SA.  

For SMB, this is more of a problem.  Less EAs and more Select, Open and OEM licensing.  We need to be aware of this “gotcha” and budget appropriately otherwise it can be a nice surprise down the road.

Please holler if you have questions. Please leverage my expertise in this area study up yourselves.  The below links are from Microsoft themselves.

 

 

And below are some good blog posts explaining it another way and with more blasts at Microsoft.  

 

Happy VDI-ing and watch your wallet!

Posted in: Virtualization.
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Viewing 5 Comments

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    Rich - VDI for SMB is a hassle today because of the licensing. But in the near future I don't see them doing desktops in-house anymore. Most will be delivered by their last mile cloud provider.

    Martijnl - Read the M$ link I provided on VECD license policy. You are actually incorrect. You can't virtualize XP legally without VECD licensing or the fully packaged product (XP or Vista). I think the confusion is that you actually need a Vista VECD license in order to virtualize XP legally.

    Thanks for the comments!
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    Thanks for the little research. I posted a link to this article on my blog.
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    It's one of the reasons to keep using Windows XP in virtual desktops. Usually the company is already covered for the workstations (provided you use thin clients the actual amount of Windows licenses needed does not change because of virtualization).

    There also a gotcha with SQL Server that I thought did not exist but a client of mine that was already running SQL Server in their virtualized environment got a bill for SQL Server CPU licenses for every node in the cluster regardless of the fact that it is running a VM with SQL Server or not. This is common practice for Oracle (and I got in trouble for publishing about it) but I didn't know that Microsoft did the same thing for SQL Server.
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    Thanks for the reclarification. It should be interesting now that more and more SMBs start to adopt virtualization and explore VDI solutions. Microsoft seems to be adjusting it's policies too now that they have VDI products as well. This may all change ... again!
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    Hi Sean,

    Just a quick one - VECD is also available as a separate SKU for Thin Client devices and this doesn't require SA. You just buy the device, then buy a VECD licence for that device. It's more expensive than VECD for SA, but doesn't have the SA requirement (it actually includes SA).

    I'm not saying this will 'soften the blow' drastically, but it's worth knowing. Also, the great thing is, is that feedback to Microsoft about it's licensing can bring changes - the Windows Server 2008 CAL change was a direct result of feedback from the field.

    Hope that helps,
    Matt
 

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