Updated: July 10, 2020 (January 26, 2009)

Agreement Licenses Servers Enterprisewide

As managing vice president, Rob Helm covers Microsoft collaboration and content management. His 25-plus years of experience analyzing Microsoft’s technology... more

The Application Platform Agreement (APA) can help large organizations budget for certain Microsoft servers, including SQL Server, SharePoint Server, and PerformancePoint Server. The APA, a little-known licensing option now being offered to more customers, licenses an entire organization for a set of server products over a specific term. An APA will simplify license compliance and deliver more predictable costs for servers than current licensing options, but it isn’t always the best option, even for large organizations.

“All You Can Eat” for Platform Products

An APA is a three-year agreement that entitles the customer to deploy covered products as broadly as they want within their enterprise during the agreement’s term, in return for an annual payment set in advance. The customer also receives Software Assurance coverage and its benefits (including upgrade rights and support incidents) on the covered products. The APA was designed for SQL Server customers, but it also covers other Microsoft “application platform” products. (See the chart “Application Platform Licenses“.)

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