Management Costs Rise for Virtual Machines

A change in Microsoft’s licensing models will raise prices for Microsoft’s management tools in organizations that use virtualization technologies. The company is moving from a model in which its OS, application, and backup management utilities were licensed per device; instead, it will license them per operating system environment (OSE). The change gives Microsoft a way to monetize the trend toward virtual machines even though its virtual machine management software trails the market leaders. However, customers may balk at higher prices.

From Device to OSE

Until now, Microsoft’s management licenses—required for any software, including the OS, that is managed by a product such as Operations Manager or Systems Management Server (SMS)—were licensed per device: the Product Use Rights (PUR) said, “You must acquire and assign a management license to each device that your instances of the server software manage.” With the Oct. 2007 edition of the PUR, however, the relevant language says, “At any one time, the number of OSEs being managed on a device may not exceed the number of OSE client or server management licenses assigned to that device.” The PUR notes that each OSE can run on either a physical device or a virtual machine (VM).