Dev Licensing questions!?

  • hi all,

    trying to get my head around licensing. specifically in a dev environment.

    Could i get some feedback on if people agree / disagree on the follow:

    Developer Edition - Buy a license for Developer Edition and unlimited people can work on the Box.

    MSDN Licenses. single user can build unlimited Developer Edition boxs but only they can access it.

    If you have 3 stages of Development for an application

    Dev - IT team working on design of the app. Developer Edition is allowed.

    Testing - IT team test with small pool of users. to test that the app works as predicted and as the users want. Its not used for production use in anyway. Developer Edition is still allowed

    Production - Has to be Std or Ent edition as its live!

    Thanks

  • Disclaimer: I am not a legal authority and the following is only my opinion based on my understanding of the developer license.

    Each developer will need a licensed copy of the Developer Edition. Developer Edition can be used in the Test Environment, but it I remember correctly the testers do not need a licensed copy if they are not modifying, creating, or deleting database objects (tables, stored procedures, views, functions, and the like).

    Your best option, however, is to check with Microsoft directly (even though you may get differing responses depending on who you yalk to and when).

  • Hi Lynn

    Thanks for the reply! I know its a very grey area, in my old shop i got told completely different info from MS direct depending on who i spoke to. Just looking for a general view.. As i never really thought about the Dev side and have found a few Ent licenses being used for Dev / Testing.

    Each developer will need a licensed copy of the Developer Edition.

    What if you have 3 devs and 10 boxs would you only need 3 licenses? Reading the MSDN licensing, it looks like if you have the correct version (Ie one the one that includes SQL Server) this would be right. But what if you don't have anyone with MSDN

    Developer Edition can be used in the Test Environment, but it I remember correctly the testers do not need a licensed copy if they are not modifying, creating, or deleting database objects (tables, stored procedures, views, functions, and the like).

    Excellent, Thats what i hoping, thinking.

    I was planning on suggesting

    All Dev Testing should be using Developer Edition.

    We should own a Developer Edition License per Server.

    Then i wasnt sure on -

    MSDN license for anyone that does Dev work on either Dev or Testing. Im guessing no. .

    Thanks again!

  • The SQL 2012 licensing reference guide available on the Microsoft site has this to say:

    The SQL Server 2012 Developer Edition is a full-function version of SQL Server software—with all the features

    and capabilities of the Enterprise Edition—licensed under the Developer Tools model, which is a “per user”

    model. One license is required for each person that accesses or uses the software.

    When using SQL Server software for development, test or demonstration purposes, only the users are licensed

    and a corresponding license for the actual server systems running SQL Server software is not required. As long

    as only licensed users have access to the software, customers can install as many copies of the software on any

    number of servers that are employed exclusively for this use.

    Seems pretty clear to me--you have to buy one copy of the Developer Edition per developer or tester, and you can then install it on as many servers as you like provided only the licensed users have access to the SQL server instances on those machines.

  • Paul describes it the way I've been using it. We have 3 devs and 1 tester. We purchased 4 dev licenses. We can install it and use it on as many servers as we want/need but only the 4 of us can access it/use it. It is my understanding that the testers need licenses also.

    Tom

  • Testers also need to have Licenses.

    The only exception being End users who perform UAT.

Viewing 6 posts - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

You must be logged in to reply to this topic. Login to reply