Windows Server 2003 CAL's required for every machine?

matja · 17 Jul 2007 at 15:25

Is it possible to unwittingly breach the licensing agreement for Windows 2003 Server regarding Client Access Licenses (CAL's)?

I ask this because we have a network with two Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition machines as domain controllers (each comes with 5 CAL's, so that's 10 CAL's), and more than 10 Windows XP machines joined to the domain.

The only 'service' we use is file/printer sharing, shared from one server.

The servers have been installed with the 'Per Server Mode' licensing (as described here : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/howtobuy/licensing/caloverview.mspx) which as far as I can make out, should restrict the number of simultaneous connections to 5 per server.

However, right now I can see that there are 12 machines accessing files on one server, but I've never come across any access denied error messages or whatever regarding CAL's.

Is this within the acceptable use for the licensing conditions, considering the fact that everything seems to work fine without having to add extra CAL's?

I must admit that the licensing webpage confuses me rather than helping :confused:

.walls · 17 Jul 2007 at 15:48

Yip - sorry, you have indeed breached the license

Per server does not allow transferring the licenses from one to the other, and even if it did, you'd still be over by 2 CALs.

If you're going to stick with per server as opposed to per seat (it's called per user/per device now - but is essentially the same thing), you're going to need to either limit the connections to each server, or get 12 CALs per server.

matja · 17 Jul 2007 at 16:35

thanks for clarifying that - so I can be 'legal' right now by restricting the connections per server to 5? how does one do that, and why doesn't it do it by default?

I'm still having some trouble understanding exactly how many CAL's I'd need :

Would I need to buy device CAL's for BOTH Windows Server's, for every Windows XP client machine? Lets say 15 XP machines = 30 CAL's?

If that is the case, then user CAL's would make more sense, but what does Microsoft count as a 'user'. I have domain user accounts for backup, testing, etc - do I count these as well as physical people?

Would I still need CAL's if I used Windows Server 2003 just for Domain Controller dutues, and instead used Linux for file/printer sharing? - exactly what does Microsoft mean by 'services' running on a 'server'?

So many questions

Burnsy2023 · 17 Jul 2007 at 16:49

I'd just license per device, it's much easier to keep track of. If you do this you can just buy two more CALs.

A 'User' is a set of credentials that requests 'services' from a 'server'.

A service is anything that a server provides, be it DNS, DHCP or AD.

Yes you still need cals for authentication.

Burnsy

matja · 17 Jul 2007 at 17:18

Thanks for the reply - CAL's on order

stoofa · 17 Jul 2007 at 17:32

CAL's are one of the few areas that Microsoft still work on trust - with the exception of Small Business Server CAL's.
So yes it is possible to have exceeded the limit without actually knowing you have done.
However as with anything license related - ignorance is no defence, so you've noticed and now you will need to fix things.

Once you've got more than one server you really are better simply buying per device/user licenses.
It can work out more expensive doing things that way, especially if you don't always have your full staff in, but ultimately a lot easier to manage.

The above licensing system simply allows each of your users to connect to any number of Windows Servers and use any service that doesn't require seperate application CALs
So for example MS Exchange and MS SQL Server require you to purchase additional CALs, however by simply purchasing in effect a single Server CAL for each user that joins your network he/she can legally connect to any number of Windows servers.