• Chart: Matching Server Management Licenses to Workloads

Configuration Manager 2007, the replacement for Systems Management Server (SMS), introduces multiple levels of licensing for managed systems and raises prices significantly for many licenses. It also changes product use rights to require separate management licenses for each virtual machine (VM) on a computer. Customers will find that costs are higher for all workloads, although a suite that combines Configuration Manager with other Microsoft management products provides a way to license many VMs at a discount.

Configuration Manager 2007 Licensing Overview

With Configuration Manager 2007, as with SMS, a server that is performing the management task requires a product license. Also, every computer that is being managed requires its own management license (ML).

As with its predecessor, Configuration Manager 2007 uses an instance of SQL Server (Standard Edition or higher; the free Express Edition will not work) to store site management data. Customers can purchase either a SQL Server license or a version of the management software—Configuration Manager Server 2007 with SQL Server Technology—that includes a license for an instance of SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition that can be used only with Configuration Manager 2007.

However, Configuration Manager 2007 introduces two major licensing changes:

• Configuration Manager has multiple types of ML, which depend on the type of system and the management features employed; SMS had MLs for clients and servers that had identical prices and similar functionality.
• MLs are no longer applied per device, but per operating system environment (OSE), a change that will affect customers using virtualization.

Three Types of ML

Configuration Manager offers three types of MLs: one for clients (such as desktop PCs, laptops, and mobile devices), and two for servers.

MLs for servers are differentiated primarily by whether Configuration Manager is used for desired configuration management (DCM) or not.

A basic workload requires only a Standard ML and licenses the right to use DCM for only basic OS utilities, such as the System Resource Manager, Baseline Security Analyzer, and Reliability and Availability Services; file and print service workloads, including print server, Distributed File System, File Replication Service, Network File System, File Transfer Protocol, and Windows SharePoint Services; and networking service workloads, such as Distributed Naming Service, Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol, and Windows Internet Naming Service.

Other OS services and components (such as Internet Information Services or Windows SharePoint Services) and any applications running in an OSE cannot employ DCM if the OSE is licensed only with a Standard ML.

Workloads for which customers want to use DCM, including DCM for IT compliance and governance configurations, OS utilities not covered by the Standard ML, and any applications running on the server.

(The official description of the workloads is in the Management Servers section of Microsoft's Product Use Rights document, which can be downloaded from a link at www.microsoft.com/licensing.)

Aside from DCM, other Configuration Manager services are enabled with either ML. These include software distribution, software update management, OS deployment, advanced task sequencing, vulnerability assessment, and software and hardware inventory. (For a more complete review of Configuration Manager 2007 features, see "Configuration Manager 2007 Updates SMS".)

Operating System Environments

Beginning with the Oct. 2007 edition of the Product Use Rights, Microsoft introduced a new management licensing entity called an operating system environment (OSE), which refers to either a physical or virtual OS instance. New MLs for Configuration Manager (as well as for all other Microsoft management products, including Operations Manager and Data Protection Manager) are applied per OSE rather than per device.

The change is meant to address virtualization technologies, which enable multiple OS instances to run on a computer inside virtual machines (VMs). Now, each VM on such a computer will require an ML. This contrasts with SMS, in which SMS licenses were applied to devices, and as a result only a single management license was required for a computer, regardless of how many instances of the OS were running on it. This means that a server running eight VMs will need nine MLs to cover the host OS and all the guest OSs. (For more information about the change in licensing model, see "Management Costs Rise for Virtual Machines".)

There are several exceptions to this change to address suites that bundle Configuration Manager MLs. For example, a client ML for Configuration Manager is bundled with the Core Client Access License (Core CAL), a suite which also includes CALs for Exchange Server, SharePoint Server, and Windows Server. Configuration Manager MLs bought with the Core CAL apply to a device or a user, not to an OSE. Similar rules apply to the Enterprise CAL Suite (a superset of the Core CAL) and to the System Center management suites discussed below.

Higher Prices, New Suites

The product license for Configuration Manager 2007 starts at US$573 and the edition with SQL Server costs US$1,307. (Unless otherwise noted, all prices quoted are for licenses obtained through the Open License volume licensing program and do not include Software Assurance maintenance, which adds 25% a year to the cost of licenses; further discounts are available for higher-volume purchases.) No Configuration Manager 2007 product licenses are required for secondary site servers, which are typically installed in branch offices to perform configuration management services but rely on the primary server's management database. (However, if a secondary site server is managed by Configuration Manager, it requires a server ML.)

Client MLs cost US$41, an increase in price from the US$35 for an SMS server or client ML.

The price for managing servers has gone up substantially. The Standard ML for a server costs US$155, and the Enterprise ML costs US$426. Considering that SMS MLs applied to an entire device, including all workloads and VMs running on it, the new price is a four- to 12-fold increase for a single OSE and would rapidly multiply on devices running more than one OSE.

Softening the blow, Microsoft has introduced two suites of server MLs for Configuration Manager as well as other products in the System Center line. Both suites require purchase of SA maintenance coverage. (For more information about MLs and the workloads to which they apply, see the chart "Matching Server Management Licenses to Workloads".)

The System Center Server Management Suite Standard costs US$468 for the license and two years of SA, with an ongoing cost of US$78 a year. It includes the Standard MLs for Configuration Manager 2007, the Data Protection Manager 2007 backup product, and the Operations Manager 2007 monitoring product.

Available starting Nov. 2007, this suite will replace the System Center Standard Server ML. That suite included MLs for Data Protection Manager 2006, Operations Manager 2007, and SMS 2003 R2 and was priced lower than its successor, at US$357 for the license and two years of SA. It also offered greater functionality, since the Data Protection Manager 2006 and SMS 2003 R2 MLs covered all workloads and all OSEs on managed devices. (The Operations Manager 2007 Standard ML, however, has always been limited to management of only basic server workloads.)

The System Center Server Management Suite Enterprise, at US$1,290 for the license and two years of SA, with an ongoing cost of US$215 a year, is the star of the ML show. It includes Enterprise MLs for all of Microsoft's management products, including a product license and ML for the new Virtual Machine Manager. In addition, it grants rights to manage an unlimited number of OSEs on a single physical server, not requiring separate MLs for each OSE.

Comparing the price of the enterprise ML suite with the price of the Configuration Manager 2007 Enterprise ML by itself shows that the suite is a better value for most virtualized environments. Take, for example, the case of a server running two VMs. For just slightly more than the price of three Enterprise MLs (US$426 each, or US$1,278 in total), the suite also includes enterprise MLs for Operations Manager and Data Protection Manager, as well as Virtual Machine Manager, and can manage any number of additional VMs on the server at no extra cost for management licenses.

These suites will thus mitigate some of the increased cost of using Configuration Manager MLs, especially for companies that use virtualization and are committed to Microsoft's entire systems management line. However, they will not help organizations that adopted SMS for configuration management of virtual machines but rely on other vendors for monitoring, backup, and other functions.

Getting There

The upgrade path for customers who own SMS will be similar to the approach taken for upgrades of other management products, such as Operations Manager. Customers with SA on SMS management licenses will be upgraded to the Standard ML but will need to purchase a "step-up" license to get the Enterprise ML and a further step-up to the Server Management Suite Enterprise.

In addition, Microsoft will give customers with SA on their SMS server ML an additional ML for every 10 MLs that they already own. The company says the 10% benefit reflects the proportion of systems that employ VMs generally, although the promotion will have unequal impacts: customers who are not using virtualization today may not benefit from the extra licenses, while customers who employ it widely will likely find that the extra ML does not go very far.

Customers who are consolidating servers can also reemploy any surplus device-based server MLs to OSEs that are running in VMs on consolidated servers.

Customers with SA on the server license will be able to use Configuration Manager under the same terms as SMS (i.e., licensed per device) until they renew their SA. At that time they will migrate to the new licensing model and may want to step up to the Enterprise ML.

Note that customers retain their current use rights on any management licenses that they purchase before Nov. 1, 2007. For licenses that are covered by SA, however, use rights will change when customers renew SA in their current licensing agreements. In other words, if they renew SA on an SMS server ML after Nov. 1, it will be converted to a Configuration Manager Standard ML that is subject to the per-OSE restriction and can no longer be employed on a per-device basis.

In any case, customers who use SMS to manage servers that host virtual machines should budget additional funds for more, and more expensive, MLs if they plan to continue to use SMS to manage those machines.

Resources

A technical overview of Configuration Manager 2007 can be found in "Configuration Manager 2007 Updates SMS".

Configuration Manager 2007 licensing information from Microsoft can be found at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/configmgr/howtobuy/default.mspx.

Virtual Machine Manager is described in more detail in "Virtual Machine Manager Virtually Here".

Product Use Rights, including descriptions of different types of management workloads and the use of OSEs, can be downloaded from a link at www.microsoft.com/licensing.