CAL licenses for AD server

Question

Hello,

my company is planing to purchase and setup AD on a Windows 2019 server. The server will host only Active Directory + hard drives for networked home folders for users, and maybe a print server down the road. I would like to know if and how many CAL licenses are needed for this, as the users will not have direct access to the server except for the admin account and 2-3 ppl from our IT departmet?
From what I have read no licenses should be required, but on another forum I read that for each user I would need one license. Need some clarification on this.

Thanks in advanced.

Answer 1

Hello,

Your point of view is correct. You need to purchase two licenses: a server license and a CAL license.

The server license is for the use of the thing itself, and the CAL is what each client will need to access it.

If you have found my answer helpful, I would appreciate it if you would press the helpful button.

Best regards,

Yu

Answer 2

Hi IT Brokeria,

Thank you for reaching out to the Microsoft Support Community.

I'm here to help with your problem.

The official Microsoft reference shows the following description:

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With the User CAL, you purchase a CAL for every user who accesses the server to use services such as file storage or printing, regardless of the number of devices they use for that access. 

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https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/licensing/product-licensing/client-access-license

I think you need to purchase the CAL.

Best regards,

Yu

Answer 3

Hello,

yeah, I read that but there is also further down written that you do not need CAL with core licenses, yet in another source It seems I do need CALs and Core licenses:

https://getlicensingready.com/HandoutStore/Licensing%20Windows%20Server%202019%20on-premises%20v20.40.pdf

Really confused on this. We have up to 50 users and only about 2-3 will ever access the server, the others will only have Windows home folders on the drives, which will be enforced by OU's and GP.

So to my understanding now, I need 32 Core Server license (For Ryzen 9 7950X CPU that will be used) and 50 CALs for the users even thou they will not access the server, right?

Answer 4

Thanks for the info. One last question:
CALs are annual as I see but for the 2019 Standard server license for 32 cores, that is a one-time purchase right?

Answer 5

Yes, you only need to purchase the server license once.