Windows 2000 licensing scenario.

[Mulder]

I need a little help with this one.

We have one exchange server, one server running MSDE, one file server, one web server and one backup server. The OS on all of them is windows server 2000. Let's say we have 100 users who access them all except the backup server. What are the licensing requirements here? Do we only need 100 CAL's for all the servers? Do we need 100 CAL's per server, i.e. 500 CAL's? What about licensing the servers themselves?

Any ideas on what the licensing requirements would be?

 

[Baz]

You would need 100 CAL's for 100 users, doesn't matter whether its for 1 server or 1000 servers. You will need the appropriate CAL's for exchange server as well.

With MS, the CAL's are either concurrant (not a good idea with lots of servers), or per device, which is the preferred method.

 

[stoofa]

Basically:

Each server requires a Windows 2000 Server License
Buy 100 Windows 2000 CAL's which would be distributed on a per user/per device
Buy 100 Exchange CAL's - one per user

Each user through virtue of the Windows 2000 CAL can access any number of Windows 2000 servers.
Each user through virtue of the Exchange CAL can access the MS Exchange server.

If you were buying this now you would actually buy Windows 2003 Server, Windows 2003 Server CAL's and Exchange 2003 CAL's.
You are allowed to downgrade licenses by one version - so your 2003 licenses would be good for the Windows 2000 setup now and you'd also be licensed for if you move up to a Windows 2003 setup.

When it comes to buying your CAL's remember that a lot of the OEM server licenses ship with 5 CAL's which can be distributed as you please.
You mentioned 5 Win2k Servers in your example.
If they had all come with OEM Server 2000 on there is a good chance you've immediately got 25 Windows 2000 Server CAL's which obviously means you only need to buy 75 more rather than 100.

 

[Mulder]

Thanks guys, that's really helpful.