Licensing SQL Server 2008 R2

Monday, 25 October 2010

This licensing outline is designed for organizations that need to budget for SQL Server 2008 R2, identify licensing options and choose between them, and assure license compliance. It provides an organized introduction for readers who are new to SQL Server 2008 R2 licensing and serves as a quick reference for experts. The report helps customers determine the type and quantity of SQL Server licenses their organization needs and how best to purchase them through volume licensing programs, for both conventional and virtualized servers. It explains each of the editions of SQL Server and when they are most appropriate, product bundles that include SQL Server and when they make the most economic sense, and the different licensing models customers can choose between and factors that determine which is the most cost-effective.

Introduction

Licensing systems on Microsoft's platform often entails licensing SQL Server, which delivers database management, reporting, analysis, and other business intelligence functions to the overwhelming majority of Microsoft server applications as well as many custom and third-party commercial applications. SQL Server customers must choose between more product editions and licensing options than for any other Microsoft offering, and must contend with complex rules and special exceptions that can lead them to require more (and sometimes even fewer) licenses than they might otherwise anticipate. The latest version, SQL Server 2008 R2, maintains most aspects of the SQL Server licensing model but raises some tricky transition issues.

Multiple Components, One License

SQL Server is in fact several freestanding components sold under one license. The most prominent is a database engine for storing, managing, and retrieving large volumes of related business or transactional data, including tools for administering databases, data access libraries that enable applications to communicate with the database, and utilities for replicating and synchronizing copies of data across multiple sites. The product also includes components for extracting data from operational systems for analysis (Integration Services), online analytic processing and data mining (Analysis Services), and design and distribution of reports (Reporting Services). Lastly, some editions of SQL Server 2008 R2 include a complex event-processing platform that scans new input to detect important patterns and responds on the fly (StreamInsight) and a system for improving data consistency across multiple independent database systems to improve the accuracy and value of reporting and analysis functions (Master Data Services).

While one SQL Server license entitles a customer to install and run any combination of these components at the same time on a single physical server, most customers typically dedicate a server to a particular role, such as database engine or Analysis Services. The terms of a SQL Server license do not allow a customer to split components across multiple servers. For example, a single license does not give a customer the right to run the database engine on one server and Reporting Services on another—every server that runs a SQL Server component must be licensed separately.

Determining What Licenses Are Required

Determining the type and quantity of SQL Server licenses needed boils down to five tasks:

Select the product edition most appropriate to the usage scenario. SQL Server is packaged in eight editions, with the two low-end editions offered for free. (See the chart "Pricing for SQL Server 2008 R2 Editions".) Technical features and licensing rules differ widely between editions, so a deep understanding of a project's technical requirements is often required to select the most cost-effective edition. No other Microsoft server product offers as many editions or differences between editions.

Determine whether licensing via a server bundle is an option. Several Microsoft bundles include high-end editions of SQL Server along with other Microsoft server products. In certain scenarios, it is far more economical to license SQL Server as part of a bundle rather than to license SQL Server as a stand-alone product. No other Microsoft server product is offered in as many server bundles. (For a list of the available bundles, see the chart "Products That Depend on SQL Server".)

Choose between licensing models and volume purchase programs offered. When purchased stand-alone (rather than as part of a bundle), several fee-based editions of SQL Server offer customers a choice between two licensing models; no other Microsoft server product offers such an option and factors beyond a direct cost comparison can influence customers' choice of a licensing model. In the server-CAL licensing model, an organization purchases a server license for each server running SQL Server and a Client Access License (CAL) for each client user or device. In the per-processor model, the organization typically purchases a license for each physical processor chip residing on the motherboard (processor cores in a multicore processor are not counted separately). Furthermore, customers must choose between several volume purchase program options, which differ in terms of purchase commitment levels, payment timing and predictability, discounts, and other features.

Evaluate licensing impacts of system architecture and hardware. Many large organizations will run multiple independent SQL Server workloads on shared servers. How this is done can have important licensing implications. For example, organizations can reduce licensing costs by running multiple SQL Server workloads on a single physical server or virtual machine, rather than running each workload in its own virtual machine. Similarly, SQL Server's per-processor licensing model favors server designs with fewer physical processors, more memory, and faster buses.

Calculate how many licenses your organization requires. The rules governing which servers need to be licensed and how many licenses they require can be complex. For example, in most circumstances, stand-by servers, which perform no work unless the primary SQL Server fails, do not need to be licensed. On the other hand, when hardware virtualization is employed, servers may require more SQL Server licenses than one might expect. Furthermore, if SQL Server is licensed under the server-CAL model, customers must pay close attention to the rules governing CALs to determine the types and versions needed and the quantity required.

Decisions made in any of these five categories above can have a major effect on licensing costs—in extreme cases by a factor of 10—so close attention is warranted.

What's Ahead

This report outlines the licensing rules and costs for SQL Server. It provides an organized introduction for readers who are new to SQL Server licensing, but also provides a quick reference for experts.

The report focuses on on-premises use of SQL Server. It does not cover licensing SQL Server under a Service Provider License Agreement, which permits partners to provide applications and services built on the Microsoft platform for a monthly fee, nor the ISV Royalty program, which lets ISVs embed SQL Server in their applications and pay a royalty for each copy of the server sold. Since none of the current versions of Microsoft server products with a dependency on SQL Server are able to use SQL Azure, this cloud-based database offering is not explored in great detail. (However, an overview appears in the sidebar "Licensing the SQL Azure Cloud Database".)

Chapters Included in this Report