Microsoft is changing its per-processor server licensing
model from 1 April and enterprises could benefit
significantly.Analyst group Gartner said organisations using
partitioning to segregate different applications running on the
same multiprocessor server would benefit from the change.
Gartner analyst Alvin Park said some Microsoft
customers had complained that the company's exisiting licensing
scheme requiresd them to pay for each processor on a server, even
though they may not be running on all processors.
The issue has become more acute as
organisations have sought to cut costs in the economic downturn
through consolidating consolidate single- or dual-processor servers
onto larger systems as a way of cutting hardware and systems
management costs, he said.
From next month Microsoft will introduce its
latest per-processor licensing with businesses paying only for the
processors that the software actually runs on, rather than every
processor in a partitioned server.
Rebecca laBrunerie, head of Microsoft's
licensing programme, said the system would be "a lot more fair and
logical" for customers who use partitioning in the existing
system.
Microsoft will not offer refunds to customers
that have already paid for software they are running on partitioned
servers. Those customers will be able to reuse licenses that are
"freed up" by the system.
Using partitioning to cut licensing costs can
be complex from a technology standpoint, but the latest model
offers the potential for big savings for some customers, Gartner's
Park said.
The change affect SQL Server 2000, BizTalk
Server 2002, Internet Security and Acceleration Server 2000,
Commerce Server 2002, Content Management Server 2002, Host
Integration Server 2000, Microsoft Operations Manager 2000 and
Application Centre 2000.
For more details see:
www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/server_overview.asp