July 23, 2008 at 10:19 am
Our MI department is currently looking at a Reporting Services 2005 solution. In the first instance they want to licence a SQL 2005 server with 5 cals and then create a web app that users login to.
I don`t believe that you can use CAL`s against a web application. Can anyone confirm on deny this for me please as Microsoft`s licencing pages aren`t that clear !
Cheers
Si
July 23, 2008 at 10:42 am
You can use CALS for any type of application. MS does not restrict on the technology used. You mus license every client that will be accessing the web application - which is why CAL licensing is typically not a good choice for an internet application. If this is an intranet application and you have a fixed number of users, it is fine.
July 23, 2008 at 10:43 am
Surely you will get into trouble though if users share login information ?
July 23, 2008 at 10:46 am
5 CALS means 5 clients. You can have 5 people using the same login and it is fine.
Figure out what the realistic number is. If this is an intranet application that 30 people at your company will use, that is the number of licenses you need.
July 23, 2008 at 10:48 am
Yes Client Licenses are not a good choice, if you are planning a website with good # of users. Try diggning into the per processor Licensing strategy, that could simplify thing a bit.
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/faq.mspx
Maninder
www.dbanation.com
July 23, 2008 at 10:48 am
My thinking was if you had 5 licences users. But one user passed their info to someone else and they tried to log in from a different machine. Would it just deny access ?
July 23, 2008 at 10:58 am
SQL Server 2005 Standard and Enterprise Editions do not prevent access due to licensing. A server with a 5 CAL license will not prevent a 6th user - it will in fact not prevent a 6th concurrent connection. The software itself is indistinguishable from a per-processor license and they have in fact removed the registry entries that SQL 2000 had to tell you what type of license you have.
It is just a matter of being legal. The $180 for a CAL is a lot cheaper than the cost of getting caught violating a licensing agreement.
To my knowledge, MS has not implented anything, but recent legislation has ruled that it is legal in the US for software companies to build into the software usage information that could make it possible to determine someone is violating a licensing agreement. So, big brother may soon be watching.
July 23, 2008 at 11:00 am
Michael thats great. Cheers for your help.
Si
April 21, 2014 at 7:01 am
Hi All,
Our company procured MS SQL Server 2008 R2 with 5 CAL. I installed MS SQL Server 2008 R2. How to ensure that only 5 CALs are used. It is used for our internal access contorl system.
Kindly give some advise on this.
Regards
Rajan
April 21, 2014 at 9:35 am
govindarajan69 (4/21/2014)
Hi All,Our company procured MS SQL Server 2008 R2 with 5 CAL. I installed MS SQL Server 2008 R2. How to ensure that only 5 CALs are used. It is used for our internal access control system.
Kindly give some advise on this.
Regards
Rajan
You can't do this. You can write a process that looks for > 5 users and disconnects some, but that would have to run constantly and scan.
You can also write a method in the login for your application that prevents a 6th person from logging in by checking how many users are logged in. However this won't prevent a 6th person from logging into SQL Server with Excel, SSMS, etc.
April 21, 2014 at 10:53 am
As to my understanding the SQL SERVER CAL licensing model is not based on concurrend users but on named unsers/instances.
Those 5 CAL's are used either by 5 different logins or by 5 "end points" connecting to SQL Server, whereas the term "end point" is rather vague defined by MS. A connection is made for instance when you open a web site to display the result of a SELECT statement. If you receive the very same result by email sent using sp_send_dbmail, it's not considered as a connection.
If you copy the results of a query to an Excel file and let "everybody" gain access to it, it doesn't count as a connection.
As soon as you install a "refresh button" that will get the most recent data from SQL Server, it's a connection.
It's getting even more complicated since MS allows you to differentiate between user CAL and device CAL, but both are the same licence to purchase...
There's almost no chance for a person outside MS to guarantee a correct licensing model is installed if it's based on CAL's and you have more users and/or machines indirectly connecting to it than you have CALs. Maybe even inside MS the number of people that can do that is very very limited... But most probably MS has some hidden files installed how to track you down if they want to.
Basically, you have three choices:
a) know exactly, how many people and or how many PC's will connect to your Server
b) ask for an MS licensing specialist to help you determine how many licenses you need or
c) use a processor based licensing model.
April 21, 2014 at 9:36 pm
Thanks Steve.
Will try your suggestion.
Regards
Rajan
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