Top licensing questions...answered

Each month, we receive hundreds of licensing questions from service providers globally.  We have found that although no two service providers are the same, we all share the same pain points when it comes to licensing.  I thought today we can review a few of the more common questions to bring clarity.  If you have a question, please email community@octopus.cloud.  

We would love to hear from you!

Q1.  We have a Gold partnership with Microsoft and would like to use those licenses to provide administrative access and other use such as testing.  Can we do this?

A. Remember, in SPLA, you can have up to 20 users per datacenter to do exactly what you described.  Any more than that, you would have to license using the 50% rule in SPLA.  Other best practice is to label those users as "Admin"  to make it clear to the auditors.

Q2.  Simple question, we want to run servers on premise (our customers datacenter)  can we do that and where is it specifically written?

A.  You won't find this in the SPUR, it is actually part of the SPLA agreement.  You just have to have complete management of those servers.  Why?  If you are audited, you have to prove the way you are reporting and have visibility into what they are accessing.  

Q3.  I run SQL Enterprise and SQL Standard on the same virtual machine.  Is this possible?

A.  Yes.  You can downgrade SQL Enterprise to Standard according to the SPUR.  Most service providers license SQL Enterprise at the host level to take advantage of unlimited virtualization.

Have a question?  Don't forget to join our community.  Find out more at community@octopus.cloud

Thanks for reading.

SPLA Man