More Flexibility With New OEM Server Licensing Options Part 1

Over the last six months or so there have been several major additions to the Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Datacenter OEM licensing family, most of which have been covered in the monthly update videos, and this month is no exception. Over the past few months we have discussed new OEM server SKUs such as Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard or Datacenter ROK with SQL Server 2014 Standard, Windows Server Additional License After Point Of Sale, and this month we will discuss the new option of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter with Reassignment Rights. Let's start this series of posts by revisiting the first two SKUs mentioned above which were introduced in the second half of 2015, and in the next post I'll dig into the most recent SKU to be introduced in much more detail.

SQL Standard 2014 Standard with Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard

This SKU includes an Windows Server 2012 R2 ROK from your OEM, and a license for SQL Server 2014 Standard. While there are several customer scenarios where this SKU makes sense, the big opportunity here is the end of support for SQL Server 2005, primarily for customers with lower virtualisation requirements. As we are also getting closer to the launch of SQL Server 2016, with Release Candidate 1 being announced recently, it's also important to note that you can apply Software Assurance to SQL Server 2014 acquired through the OEM channel, just like you can with Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard and Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter. Applying Software Assurance to the server OEM licenses also gives you better long term value with the ability to reassign the licenses to new hardware in the future.

SQL Standard 2014 Standard with Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter

Building on the above, the main difference here is the inclusion of Windows Server 2012 R2 Datacenter instead of Standard, which means you get the additional virtualisation rights, making it more suitable for deployments where larger numbers of virtual machines are required.

Windows Server Additional License After Point Of Sale

Provided a base license for Windows Server 2012 R2 Standard is licensed with the server, you can purchase after point of sale licenses via the same OEM, which gives you coverage for an additional two Windows Server virtual machines, or alternatively for two additional CPUs, depending on the customer's requirements. This new license includes the rights to reassign the license to another physical server once every 90 days, bringing one of the benefits of volume licensing to the OEM channel. It's important to note that this reassignment can only be done to servers that already have a base Windows Server 2012 R2 license, and can't be used to license a bare metal installation. Up until recently this was the only OEM license that had reassignment rights, but that has changed as I will discuss in the next blog post.

For more information on obtaining these products please contact your local OEM distributor, here is the link to the Australian Microsoft Authorised OEM Distributors, or for questions on availability of these in the Australian market from different OEMs you can contact us here.