Microsoft Server Licenceing Question

Ukadder · 8 Feb 2006 at 11:19

I think I know the awnser to this already, but though it best to check as the microsoft website didn't make it clear.

Situation:

Two servers running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Server 1 is the main domain server and server 2 is the backup server.

30 users use the domain, each user PC is installed with Windows XP Pro and registered with single xp licences.

What licences would need to be purchased? Oviously 2x Windows 2000 Advanced server licences, would you then also need 30 client user licences for Windows 2000? even though every single PC is running windows XP with valid licences?

Thanks in advance chaps!

Baz · 8 Feb 2006 at 13:18

You will need the 2 Windows 2000 Advanced Server licenses (not cheap, standard server would be the cheaper option at ~£500)

You will also need Client Access Licenses (CAL's) which are the connection licenses for each client, regardless of the OS they are running. You can either apply the licenses for each client you have or for each connection. I.e. if you have 30 clients, but you know that only ever 20 of them are connected at any one time, then you can just get 20 licenses and use the per connection option in licensing.

Wait till you start having Exchange servers and IIS servers and SQL servers.. having 6 servers with 100 users can set you back 20-30k on licenses, without office :eek:

Ukadder · 8 Feb 2006 at 14:24

Thanks Baz, though that maybe the case.

We wont ever be running Exchange, luckly the company does not expand it's personnel at a huge rate and i would be very supprised if it grew to 50 people within the next 5 years. Mdaemon in our mail server, does the job lovely! Will be looking into SQL servers soon enough, the databases at the moment are terribly done.

ic1male · 9 Feb 2006 at 13:18

One thing that we recently found out is that if you buy the OEM version of the server software, it is tied to the motherboard of the server. So if your server goes bottom up and you don't have an MS support agreement, you have to buy another copy of server!

We are buying a new server for the office and retiring the old one and we cannot use our current licence of SBS 2003. We have to buy a new one for the new server. And new CALs too. Bonkers.