Specifications and pricing are normally handled by the third-party. SPLA and ISVR licensing is licensing offered through selected third-parties in collaboration with Microsoft. (SQL Server 2012 Standard, Retail Edition) Since Volume Licensing is the most common model, the remainder of this article will focus on this channel.
#SQL SERVER CLIENT LICENSE SOFTWARE#
Software Assurance contracts are not available with retail licensing. It's important to note that there are restrictions on retail licensing - only the Business Intelligence, Standard and Developer Editions of SQL Server 2012 are available through this model. Retail licensing is also called FPP (Full-Packaged Product) licensing and is normally sold through resellers. Retail Licensing, on the other hand, is fairly straightforward. Volume licensing is ideal when considering larger infrastructures, with more than a trivial number of servers. For example, SA can ensure you are no longer paying $500 per Microsoft support call that training and development needs are subsidized or provided inclusively that upgrades and patches remain available and support is available for installation. Volume licensing also goes hand-in-hand with Software Assurance (SA), an additional Microsoft product that applies to volume licenses for many different products and that allows different levels of support depending on the level purchased. With volume licensing, the company pays only for the software license, rather than the retail box set with CDs/downloads, manuals, packaging and the like. Volume Licensing is aimed at business, from small companies to large enterprises.
#SQL SERVER CLIENT LICENSE LICENSE#
This can be broadly broken down into three sections - Volume Licensing, Retail Licensing, and SPLA (Service Provider License Agreement) or ISVR (Independent Software Vendor Royalty) licensing.
This section will deal with how licensing is delivered. Links are provided at the end of the tip for further reading. In the sections below, I will start with models of delivering licenses and move through the various considerations, such as support model, license type, virtualization, high-availability solutions, licensing for previous versions, and mention some of the rules that apply in different circumstances. SQL Server 2012 is a Cloud Ready Information Platform.' Consider this extract from their main page on SQL Server 2012 licensing : 'SQL Server 2012 is a significant product release, providing Mission Critical Confidence with greater uptime, blazing-fast performance and enhanced security features for mission critical workloads Breakthrough Insight with managed self-service data exploration and stunning interactive data visualization capabilities and Cloud On Your Terms by enabling the creation and extension of solutions across on-premises and public cloud. Awash with buzzwords and over-hyped fad terms (you say 'cloud', I say 'someone else's server') the overall effect is to confuse rather than enlighten. Unfortunately they haven't been very clear about the licensing differences, with pages upon pages of marketing bumpf aimed at purchasers and not professionals. With the introduction of SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has overhauled their existing per-processor licensing model to recognize that many customers are now using multi-core servers in both physical and virtual configurations.