April 21, 2008 at 3:15 pm
What's the best price for the top version of 64bit 2005?
We are only going to need about 25 licenses due to the fact that our applications have short bursts of activity and then disconnect.
We have just bought a new server from Dell and they wanted to charge us something like $25k for SQL Server 2005. That just seemed a bit too high for me and we opted to seek a better price elsewhere.
Thanks in advance for any responses to this post.
April 21, 2008 at 8:42 pm
That price looks like a one-CPU Enterprise+SA processor license. If you think you may ever upgrade to SQL 2008, pick up SA.
We are only going to need about 25 licenses due to the fact that our applications have short bursts of activity and then disconnect.
That doesn't affect anything. If you buy CALs, you license the users of the data or the machines they use, not the number of concurrent connections.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/sqlserverlicensing.mspx
If you don't have many end users, then review the Server License + Device CAL and User CAL rules. Under that model, the server license lists around $8500, plus around $170 per user.
If those applications causing the quick bursts of activity are middle-tier apps used by lots of people - even at different times, you still need to count the people who - via any number of servers or applications - access the server data.
-Eddie
Eddie Wuerch
MCM: SQL
April 21, 2008 at 9:35 pm
I think the licensing is set at fairly standard pricing. If you have doubts about what you need, contact Microsoft. They're fairly good about answering questions and giving you fair answers.
April 22, 2008 at 6:40 am
Huh, I thought the CAL licenses were per concurrent users. Didn't they used to have some kind of licensing per concurrent user? Looks like we need the per processor license then.
I know that advertisement is frowned upon here on the forum, but where can I find the best deal on SQL Server 2005? I didn't know if anyone knew of a company that didn't advertise much, but had great deals.
April 22, 2008 at 6:52 am
Microsoft doesn't use concurrent licensing anymore. The only options are per processor, user CAL's, or device CAL's. And, as was mentioned earlier, if you are using a middle tier to serve data to users, you need as many CAL's (or go per processor) as you have potential users accessing data through the middle tier.
Our Self-Service HR system and the Student and Parent Connect modules of our Student Information System made it an easy call to go per processor.
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April 22, 2008 at 9:36 am
Will,
You don't mention which edition of SQL 2005 you're interested in, but there is a big priced difference between Standard Edition and Enterprise Edition. A $25,000 quote sounds like Enterprise. If you don't need the Enterprise features, you can save a lot of money.
Check out suggested pricing here: http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/editionspricing.mspx and the licensing advisor here: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/mla/default.aspx
Greg
April 22, 2008 at 9:46 am
My new server is a 4 cpu quad core. In licensing terms, is that 16 processors, or is it 4?
Thanks for all of the advice. Standard edition may be all I need anyway. I will have a standalone server.
April 22, 2008 at 9:52 am
Microsoft goes by physical processor, not cores, so your server has 4 processors.
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April 22, 2008 at 10:06 am
You guys let me know if this sounds about right
$5,400 (ish) for SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 and 1 processor license
$4,300 (ish) for SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 1 processor license
$4,300 (ish) for SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 1 processor license
$4,300 (ish) for SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 1 processor license
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$18,300 for SQL Server 2005 Standard x64 and 4 processor licenses
Does this sound like about the right price for a 4 processor quad-core server with 128gb ram?
April 22, 2008 at 10:08 am
Correct on sockets. If you virtualize, you also only need to license all physical sockets, not cores or virtual CPUs.
April 22, 2008 at 10:11 am
Looks good to me.
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April 22, 2008 at 10:24 am
Ok, like, ouch. That's expensive.
April 22, 2008 at 11:02 am
Not really, substitute the pricing for EE (approx $25K per processor), or for Oracle (I don't even feel like computing that).
The key to deciding whether to purchase per processor or user CAL's comes down to how many users will be access the data. So I will ask, how many potential users will be accessing the data? Of course, if the database will be serving an internet facing web site, I already know the answer.
Edit: After a quick calculation based on retail pricing from Microsoft, if you have less than 102 potetial users, CAL pricing would be better. Starting with the 102nd user, the cost of CAL's starts to exceed the per processor cost you quoted earlier.
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April 22, 2008 at 12:25 pm
It's a standalone server that hosts about 8 different applications. The biggest app has about 5000 users and we are hoping to add about 5000 more.
The way we have the big app written only about 25-30 are connected at any one time. The application connects and disconnects each time it downloads data. This was nice when we could have concurrent licenses, but it looks like we don't have that option now.
April 22, 2008 at 1:00 pm
Based on what I have read regarding Microsofts licensing, nope. With that number of users, per processor is the best way to go.
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