Core Infrastructure Suite License Prices and SA Grants

Customers with active Software Assurance (SA) on Core Infrastructure Server (CIS) licenses as of Apr. 2012 receive grants to comparable licenses, but not always at a one-to-one ratio. CIS licenses combine a server license for Windows Server and server management license for System Center. Pictured are the different CIS licenses, current pricing, and license grants for customers with SA. (SA is a subscription offering that provides rights to new product versions and other benefits for an annual fee based on a percentage of the underlying license price.) Prices quoted, in U.S. dollars and applicable to U.S. customers, are for CIS licenses purchased with two years of SA through the Open License program (No Level, or NL, pricing).

In Apr. 2012, Microsoft made significant modifications to the CIS edition lineup, licensing model, and pricing. CIS Enterprise edition was eliminated while Standard and Datacenter editions remain, and a CIS license for either edition now covers up to two physical processors in a server instead of one. Therefore, under the new model, a server with one or two physical processors needs only one CIS license, and a server with four physical processors needs two CIS licenses. And finally, the price of each individual CIS license increased, but the effect on customers vary depending on the customer’s use of virtualization.