Just read a very interesting article about how microsoft is lifting their licensing restrictions on virtual mobility come September 1st.
that is, of course, unless your virtualisation solution of choice is VMware.
i read this article more thoroughly - i had no idea what licensing restrictions existed on "virtual mobility" in the first place.
essentially it works like this: if you have a windows 2003 VM running, say, SQL 2008 Enterprise, under the current licensing conditions by microsoft you can only move that VM from one physical host to another physical host once every 90 days.
that's right folks - DRS or Vmotion can only be run once every 90 days ... unless you want to purchase additional licenses UP FRONT for running the software on another physical host.
microsoft is tying the license for their products to the PHYSICAL HOST HARDWARE and not the virtual machine.
this all changes on September 1st for everyone bar VMware. since VMware are not part of the "Microsoft Server Virtualization Validation Program", Microsoft won't pass on this licensing freedom. According to Microsoft, VMware has been invited to join, but has not participated.
read more in the article below.
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http://www.arnnet.com.au/index.php?id=1696911245&eid=-4152
Microsoft lifts licensing restriction on
virtual mobility
90-day restriction will be removed on Sept. 1 for the most
commonly used Microsoft server applications.
Microsoft Tuesday confirmed that it will eliminate a
licensing restriction that prevented customers from moving virtualized
applications to a different server more than once every 90 days.
Microsoft also said it will begin providing new levels of
technical support for applications running on virtual servers, but not those
running on VMware's hypervisor.
Server virtualization technologies allow virtual machines to
be swapped from one physical server to another without disrupting end users. But
under current Microsoft policies, customers must reassign a software license in
order to make such a move, and can only do so once every 90 days.
That 90-day restriction will be removed on Sept. 1 for the
most commonly used Microsoft server applications, including SQL Server 2008
Enterprise edition, Exchange Server 2007 Service Pack 1 Standard and Enterprise
editions, Dynamics CRM 4.0 Enterprise and Professional editions, Office
SharePoint Server 2007, and Microsoft System Center products. In all, 41 server
applications are affected.
This move was anticipated by industry observers, as [reported
by Network World last week|http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/081308-microsoft-virtual-licensing.html]. Analysts believed the time restriction
unnecessarily limited the system flexibility that makes server virtualization so
useful.
Not all server applications are gaining the new, more
favorable licensing structure, however. Forrester analyst Christopher Voce said
one noticeable absence is SQL Server Standard edition. Microsoft is apparently
trying to give customers added incentive to upgrade to the more pricy SQL Server
Enterprise edition, Voce says.
"This was an evolutionary change to the Microsoft licensing
that everyone expected," Voce says. "They introduced the kind of flexibility
that you would expect for Microsoft applications in virtual environments. But
it's not all roses for certain customers."
Microsoft predicted that many customers will be able to
reduce the number of licenses they have to purchase, since they won't need
licenses for every machine a workload might possibly be moved to. "You don't
have to have every target machine licensed ahead of time," says Zane Adam,
senior director of integrated virtualization at Microsoft.
With the change, Microsoft server apps running on virtual
machines can be moved to any server within a "server farm" as often as customers
want without accruing additional licensing fees.
Server farms are defined broadly. A customer, for example,
can move a workload from a server in New York to one in Los Angeles without
being charged an extra license fee, Adam says. However, moving a workload from
the United States to Europe would require an additional license.
A 90-day restriction still applies to desktop applications,
such as the Microsoft Office suite. Adam says Microsoft is leaving the desktop
time limit in place because desktop programs don't require the same level of
mobility as do server applications.
In addition to eliminating the 90-day rule for server
applications, Microsoft also said it will provide technical support for
applications running on several types of hypervisors. Previously, Microsoft did
not offer the same level of support for products if they were running on virtual
machines rather than physical servers. Now customers using any one of 31 server
applications on virtual machines can expect full support.
But there's a catch: the policy applies only to Microsoft's
Hyper-V virtualization software and third-party hypervisors that have been
certified under Microsoft's Server Virtualization Validation Program, which
launched in June. So far, only Cisco, Citrix, Novell, Sun and Virtual Iron have
started going through this validation process.
VMware, the x86 virtualization market's dominant vendor, is
not in the program, Microsoft says, which means this enhanced level of support
will not be extended to Microsoft products running on VMware servers. Adam says
VMware has been invited into the program, but has not participated.
