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Licensing question: Do you need three client access licences to conect a single client to three servers?

  • May 30, 2008 at 6:07 am

    #122642

    For SQL 2005 If you have three SQL Servers each client-access-per-device, and 10 clients each of which needs to be connect to all three servers, do you need one CAL (client access licence) per client per server, i.e. 30 licences, or just 10 (one per client)?

    Is this the same with 2000 and 2008?

    Thanks

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  • June 2, 2008 at 2:29 pm

    #823305

    neil (5/30/2008)

    For SQL 2005 If you have three SQL Servers each client-access-per-device, and 10 clients each of which needs to be connect to all three servers, do you need one CAL (client access licence) per client per server, i.e. 30 licences, or just 10 (one per client)?

    Is this the same with 2000 and 2008?

    Thanks

    For 2005, you will only need 10 user CALs for your scenario. The following snippet is from the link at the end: "A single device CAL grants access to multiple servers for one device ...": http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/sqlserverlicensing.mspx

    I believe licensing models changed from Server 2000 to Server 2003 so I can only assume that Microsoft changed licensing models for the different versions of SQL Server. If you search on SQL 2005 License (replace 2005 with 2000 and 2008 respectively), you'll get plenty of links to different pages that explain Microsoft's licensing.

  • June 2, 2008 at 3:44 pm

    #823341

    Typically you have CALs that allow a client to access any number of devices. I don't believe this has changed, but licensing is fluid, so I'd check directly with Microsoft on your situation.

  • June 2, 2008 at 3:49 pm

    #823345

    Device CAL's and User CAL's are different, so you may need to figure out which one makes most sense for you. Keep in mind that there is no concurrent licensing for SQL Server, so it's going to be a decision between

    (number of distinct users accessing those 3 servers) x (Price of a user CAL)

    or

    (number of distinct devices those users use to access those 3 machines) x (device CAL price)

    Also keep in mind the "direct and indirect" rule (people accessing a web front end that accesses the SQL Server are indirect SQL users, so they must be licensed).

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