Posted on 12/03/2015 6:53:38 PM PST by dayglored
"We put in more, so you'll pay by the core"
Microsoft looks to be moving to per-core licences, rather than per-CPU licences, for Windows Server 2016.
"Directions on Microsoft" chap Wes Miller tweeted links to a "Pricing and licensing FAQ" for Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Standard and Datacenter Editions. Dated December 2015, the meat of the document offers this description of Redmond's future licensing plan:
The licensing of Datacenter and Standard Edition will move from processors to physical cores, which aligns licensing of private and public cloud to a consistent currency of cores and simplifies licensing across multi-cloud environments. Licenses for servers with 8 cores or less per proc will be same price as the 2012 R2 two-proc license price.The document goes on to explain how you'll be able to buy licences, as follows:Core licenses will be sold in packs of 2 for incremental licenses needed above the required 8 cores per proc. The Standard Edition of Windows Server and System Center will license up to 2 VMs when all of the physical cores on the server are licensed.
Core licenses will be sold in packs of two licenses. Each processor will need to be licensed with a minimum of 8 cores, which is 4 two-core packs. Each physical server, including 1 processor server, will need to be licensed with a minimum of 16 cores, which is 8 two-core packs. Additional cores can then be licensed in increments of two cores (one two-core pack) for gradual increases in core density growth. Standard Edition provides rights for up to two virtual OSEs when all physical cores on a server are licensed (minimum of 8 cores per proc and 16 cores per server).Microsoft's documents say the company is doing this to make cores the common currency when licensing Windows Server. Redmond's already made moves in this direction on Azure, so per-core licensing for on-premises deployments means it should be easier to understand hybrid cloud costs.
There will be pain for users. As the graphic below shows, those of you with servers boasting two or four CPUs, and 10 or 20 cores, will require "additional licensing."
The company's justification for the changes is that Windows Server and System Center have lots of new features. So cough up, even if you don't plan on using them. Redmond can also point to the fact that it offers per-core licensing for other on-premises software, such as SQL Server and BizTalk, so it's actually doing you a favour by being more consistent.
Another nugget of information revealed in the FAQ is that Windows Nano Server is included as part of the licensing of the edition from which it is deployed.
You don't need to do anything about this for now. Microsoft says that "Customers will then begin transacting Windows Server and System by core-based licenses at the time of their software assurance renewal or at the time of net new license purchase outside of any Microsoft agreements."
In case Microsoft takes down the PDFs referred to in the Tweets, we've popped them into Dropbox here and here.
That's become the linchpin.
You mean I'm not supposed to run CentOS on my production machines? Uh-oh... :-)
I've been responsible for just about every aspect of Information Technology running large data centers, large application development projects, Enterprise intitiatives, etc.. etc.. etc..
Let me tell you what this will do:
1. So many large enterprises are running to Cloud based and Hybrid Cloud based computing as a way to save money. That's going to accelerate even more.
2. Converged and hyper-Converged systems which allow large enterprises to squeeze down their IT footprint onto faster hardware where "everything is local" and actually manage CPU consumption, driving higher utilization while maintaining application performance is the trend. This means FEWER CPU's for MORE APPLICATIONS and services.
Microsoft has seen this coming, that's why they're making the license changes to try and wring more revenue out of their customers who are finally figuring out how to do more compute with less compute power.
One last comment: I work for a very large international bank. Our Microsoft Server footprint has been SHRINKING year over year, our Linux (Red Hat Enterprise) has been GROWING. We used to have 8 Windows Servers for every 1 Linux Server.
It's now 1.5 Windows Servers for every 1 Linux Server. Our Microsoft Rep is of course, very nervous about this. In speaking to my counter-parts at other large international banks, we're not alone in this trend.
Its more than just technical support.
Its the security patches and updates.
The paranoid in me is muttering that it's a means of making the whole thing so messy that management finds the expense of working it all out with local staff is more than outsourcing to a large vendor. I could be wrong about that, but I wouldn't put it past them.
We run Cents in our (mid-size) colo. It’s fine.
Now we’re transitioning to AWS and using Amazon’s AMIs, which are RHEL/Cents binary compatible. It is *so much cheaper* than physical. We have a direct, fiber, 1gb link to AWS us-east datacenter. This move is sane.
I honestly don’t know why people pay for MS any more. Even SQL Server, previously my fave DB, has gone nuts. 2012 datacenter with the W8 interface? OK, time to change.
This is a big operation, and we’re going MS-free and pure cloud. It’s so *easy* on AWS now.
Ummm, the free CentOS releases -- which are the identical code as RedHat Enterprise, minus RH's branding -- get exactly the same security patches and updates as RedHat Enterprise -- that's the agreement by which CentOS exists.
What about the free release patches and updates is missing, other than the RH branding?
Yep. I've moved a bunch of my formerly-on-site Linux machines into AWS with very good results.
Most days I'm 50/50 on whether Microsoft is diabolically brilliant, or categorically insane. Either way, it's tough to figure them out.
As well he should be.
The only places where I'm using MS Server now are the big business applications that are written only for Windows Server and MS-SQL. Everything else is getting phased out over time and converted to Linux.
Yep, the only reason we still use our windows/VMware internal DC are for big .net apps. Which will be rebuilt but it takes time.
I see the future, and it’s not MS. Sad, really, but they have to take some of the blame.
I worked for a big corp, though not in IT. However I had access to the IT team and the servers. Their Linux boxes were Dell hardware running Redhat. My understanding was they did so because they could let Redhat take the heat if anything went terribly wrong.
I still don’t get it. Sounds like a serious “no confidence” vote by management. If they don’t think their IT department is competent, why not hire people who are?
I truly believe the boys at the top weren’t competent to hire good people.
Ha! If I tried to blame RedHat for a system outage, I’d fired. Actually, I’d probably be fired before I could blame RH. That’s the deal, and the trust I have in linux.
I would trust Linux or BSD. The problem comes in when management doesn’t know enough about IT to hire competent people. What I saw was pockets of competency.
In their telecom department, they had a very good older radio engineer to install telephones and pull wire. In a big corporation, it appears suck ups do very well so long as they can find a fall guy for their screw ups.
My (second hand) understanding is that Oracle licenses by the physical core at the hypervisor level, even if you provision less to the VM. This is why HDS touts their ability with UCP to provision dedicated cores to an LPAR (not sure if they use that term) so that the hypervisor only has as many cores as you need to provision.
And who needs that stress when you have Amazon RDS or Aurora. Oracle are kinda struggling too. Dynamic DB, scaling to fit use, on a pay-per-load basis? No, Oracle is now dinosaur.
Or, if you require columnar, redshift.
I was in a meeting with SAP and you could see the uncomfortable going against redshift. You pay, but only what you use.
Disclosure: I don’t work for amazon, I’m just some tech guy.
Microsoft seems to be doing everything it can to promote Linux these days... :-)
You obviously think that Linux is free for corporations, and I can tell you that you’re sorely mistaken. RHEL costs our company a pretty penny for licensing, and if you don’t license your copies of RHEL, you don’t get updates.
Ballmer hasn’t been with MS since 2014. He’s on the board, but he has no controlling stake in the business anymore.
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