Can’t buy SCVMM 2012 on its own

walnuts · 21 Jun 2012 at 18:59

Was wondering what people thoughts are on this subject. Was looking forward to new release of Hyper-V and SCVMM 2012 but found out you can no longer buy SCVMM 2012 on its own.

It's now part System Center 2012 suite and has to be licensed for each host. It’s now going to cost a lot more (previously it cost around £1000 for unlimited no. hosts).

Has this affected anyone’s plans?

walnuts · 26 Jun 2012 at 21:39

This is only thing I've found that may reduce cost of going with Hyper-V 3 + SCVMM:

http://www.aidanfinn.com/?p=12185

You'll still end up paying more than before and get additional software you may not need or have resources to setup/manage.

Only other option I'm going to look at is VMware Essentials bundles.

walnuts · 4 Jul 2012 at 13:44

NiCkNaMe said:
- I guess you've never had the fun of running on a TAP or RDP program before. Majority of TAP programs require some element of production deployment with immediate support provided via a direct line to the product teams. Microsoft have used TAP and RDP programs for ages to get early feedback on products in beta, preview, and release candidate phases.

The TAP program has had massive adoption for Server 2012 (given the huge number of features in the release!) - hence my comments that a large number of enterprises have it deployed - with great feedback.

Any TAP/RDP programs has relevant NDA's in place, so no public case studies can really be expected until release.

RE: licensing... to get the most benefit out of System Center 2012 you need to deploy the Suite - which is exactly what MS want - it's driving their cloud strategy forward and Windows Server 2012 + System Center 2012 gives you the platform to start moving your organisation to a cloud-computing model.

Do you think it's worth deploying whole suite for small/medium size business? I'm looking after 150 desktops and about 15 servers.

walnuts · 4 Jul 2012 at 23:00

NiCkNaMe said:
On a personal level (e.g. for your own development) then yes if you've got the licensing model in place! Going to be big demand for SC skills over the next few years.

If I was advising you professionally, I'd personally be looking at a cloud offering for that size org which with an MS hat on would be Intune and Advisor. They would do the job for you. Then use Hyper-V Server 2012 (once released) in a 2 node cluster for hosting your server, perhaps with Hyper-V replica to a third site (or co-lo) for your DR.

Thanks, will have a look into cloud services.

We're not currently licensed for SC and purchasing it now would a bit harder with recent Microsoft price hike on volume licensing.