Posted by: kurtsh | June 2, 2008

HOWTO: Properly license Windows Client OSs for Desktop Virtualization

UPDATE 12/4/08:
I’ve recently learned of a drop in the price of VECD.  Here are the numbers, but to put it into English – customers looking to purchase "VECD for devices with Windows licenses and Software Assurance", will have pricing around ~$2/month/device.  Customers with devices like thin clients that don’t have Windows licenses and Software Assurance will have pricing around ~$10/month/device.  The pricing waterfall depends on the contract size that your organization has with Microsoft.

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ORIGINAL POST:
image Customers looking to deploy Desktop OS’s on virtual hosted servers like VMware ESX Server or Windows Server 2008 Hyper-V in "VDI" configurations, need to look at very specific  licenses/subscriptions in order to remain in compliance.

IMPORTANT:
Customers do NOT natively have the right to run Windows 2000/XP/Vista on servers in VDI configurations.

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In order to properly license your company for Windows 2000/XP/Vista desktop operating systems to run on virtual machine servers, you have one of the following options:

OPTION 1:
Option 1 requires three licenses:

  1. Windows Client OS Licensing per Virtual Machine
    This is the standard Windows license purchased from a typical Volume License agreement with Microsoft.  Most people forget this however this Windows OS license is actually an ‘upgrade’ license.  It ‘upgrades’ a Windows OEM license typically purchased with a desktop PC to the Enterprise deployable version found on Volume Licensing media.
  2. Windows Software Assurance subscription
    This is an annual subscription license applied to each virtual desktop and is usually something around 10% of the license cost.  It provides a dozen or so benefits to customers including the ability to upgrade to any new releases of Windows released during the period of the subscription, as well as the right to downgrade to any supported release of Windows.  Companies with Enterprise Agreements usually have Windows Client Software Assurance subscriptions for their desktop OS licensing.

    In most agreements, the licensing for both the Client OS & Software Assurance are put together in a single-priced package called "Windows Vista Business English Upg/SA Pack MVL w/VisEnterprise".

  3. Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) Subscription for customers with Software Assurance
    (Win VisEnt CentralDsktpSA English Monthly Subscription MVL Per Device)
    This is a monthly subscription that is applied per access device for a virtualized desktop environment.  The access device is typically a ‘thin client’ but may include home PCs and other workstations that will access the virtualized desktops hosted on a server.

The license usually costs around $4-$7/per access device/month.  Just a reminder:  The name of this subscription is a misnomer; it applies to ANY Windows version and not just Windows Vista.

OPTION 2:
Option 2 requires just 1 license:

  1. Windows Vista Enterprise Centralized Desktop (VECD) Subscription for customers without Software Assurance
    (Win VisEnt CentralDsktp English Monthly Subscription MVL Per Device)
    This is again a monthly subscription that is applied per access device for a virtualized desktop environment.  Again, the access device is typically a ‘thin client’ but may include home PCs and other workstations that will access the virtualized desktops hosted on a server.

    Recall that with this option, once the subscription lapses, the customer does not own any licenses of any Client OS.  Usage rights to Windows expires as soon as the subscription agreements ceases.  The license is more expensive than VECD for SA customers, and usually costs around $10-$20/per access device/month.

For more information, visit the following resources:

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