Office Web Apps Server provides updated versions of Word Web App, Excel Web App, PowerPoint Web App, and OneNote Web App. Users can view and, if they are licensed appropriately, edit Office documents by using a supported web browser on both computers and various mobile devices. In addition to new features in Office Web Apps, the architecture and the deployment method have also changed, which enables Office Web Apps to provide support for Exchange Server 2013, and Lync Server 2013.  However, the primary component which enables the web based Office app functionality is the Office Web Apps Server.  Of course, as a licensing blog, we will be focusing on the licensing requirements of Office Web Apps Server.  For technical details, including features and functionality, head over to TechNet, or the Office Team Blog announcement.

Office Web Apps Server is a free download from the Microsoft Download Center and may be installed and used on any number of servers that are required to support your Office Web Apps Server deployment.  Other licensing considerations after downloading the server are based on who will be accessing the server, if the content is public facing, and how they will be using it. 

*“External Users” are users that are not either your or your affiliates’ employees, or your or your affiliates’ onsite contractors or onsite agents.  External users may access Office Web Apps to view or edit documents using Office Web Apps without additional licensing requirements.”

**Office Standard 2013, Office Professional Plus 2013, Office for Mac Standard 2011 (or any successor version), Office Professional Plus User Subscription License (SL), Office 365 ProPlus User SL, Office 365 Plan E3-E4, or any plan which includes E3-E4, Office 365 Plan A3-A4, or any plan which includes A3-A4, Office 365 Plan G3-G4

Here is the general guidance outlined in the table above:

• Viewing Only:  The default setting for Office Web Apps Server is set to view only.  Anyone: internal employees, onsite contractors/agents, and external users may access the Office Web Apps Server to view Office files supported by the Office Web Apps Server.

• Internal Users (e.g. employees/affiliates):  As outlined above, any internal users (e.g. employees, affiliates, and onsite contractors or agents) of a company with a Volume License Agreement may access the Office Web Apps Server to view Office documents.  Users who are the primary user of a device with the following volume licenses (not including SPLA) may access the Office Web Apps Server to editOffice documents from any device:
  • Office Standard 2013
  • Office Professional Plus 2013
  • Office for Mac Standard 2011 (or any successor version)
  • Additionally, users who are assigned one of the following licenses (or successor services/products) have rights to edit documents using Office Web Apps:
  • Office 365 ProPlus
  • Office 365 Plan Enterprise E3-E4, or any plan which includes E3-E4
  • Office 365 Plan Education A3-A4, or any plan which includes A3-A4
  • Office 365 Plan Government G3-G4

Finally, any internal user – with or without one of the above licenses under the Internal User bullet may access the Office Web Apps to view and/or edit documents and content that you make publically available to users over the Internet (as long as your company has some type of Volume License Agreement). 

For example, let’s say you deploy an Office Web Apps Server to support a SharePoint site that’s accessible outside of the firewall and it is used by customers to upload a Request for Proposal.  Both, your customers and employees can view and edit those documents without any additional Office licensing requirements.

• External Users* (as defined in the Product Use Rights or the acronym PUR).  External users may access Office Web Apps to view or edit documents using Office Web Apps without additional licensing requirements.

*“External Users” are users that are not either your or your affiliates’ employees, or your or your affiliates’ onsite contractors or onsite agents.  External users may access Office Web Apps to view or edit documents using Office Web Apps without additional licensing requirements.”

For those of you who may have been familiar with the prior licensing model previous Office Web Apps, you will notice that this approach is much more flexible. It enables additional scenarios for Volume Licensing customers which may not have been practical in the past, due to licensing requirements – particularly when providing access to external users.  As always, be sure you read and understand the appropriate licensing documents.  In this case, it will be the EULA which is included with the Office Web Apps Server software.  Of course you can work with your reseller, partner, or account team for additional details.

Summary: With the consumerization of IT, and the proliferation of devices in the workplace, it is now as important as ever that the licensing model you use is delivering the most value to your business.  Our volume licensing programs can offer the flexibility and improved manageability to ensure your CAL licensing model is optimally matched with your organization’s needs.  If your business needs change and you want to switch from your current method of Client Access Licensing (CAL) there is an opportunity to switch from Device to User CALs or vice versa.  That opportunity comes when you renew Software Assurance (SA) on your CALs.   

Let’s say your Company chose license access to server software with Device Client Access Licenses (CALs) in the early days of the business because Device CALs made economic sense as you had more employees than devices. By licensing devices, you were guaranteed that all access to the server software was properly licensed and this was the most cost effective solution.

Now let’s fast-forward a few years.  Your devices outnumber your employees.  Put another way, each employee now has multiple devices; a PC, a laptop, a tablet, or a smart phone and you want them to be able to access your server software with ALL of these devices.  The most cost effective licensing solution for this scenario is to license client access by User CALs.

If this mix between users and devices exists in your organization it’s a likely indication that you should consider switching from Device CALs to User CALs as it is more cost effective and applicable for your business needs. 

How is this accomplished?  Here are the key steps you’ll need to take:

• First, confirm that your CALs are covered by active Software Assurance (SA). 
• Second, the switch is made ONLY at the time of SA renewal on the CALs.  This licensing situation is outlined in the Product List.  If you’re searching the Product List for this text, it’s called transitioning between User and Device CALs.

Client Access License (CAL) Decision Tool 

In closing, volume licensing and active software assurance can give you the flexibility to switch between User and Device based CALs upon renewal of your SA coverage.  Refer to the current Product List, contact our Pre-Sales/Licensing customer service team, or work with your reseller or account team if you have additional questions.

This is one scenario, and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Summary: A common question that comes across our desk, especially around new Product launches is:  “I have active Software Assurance (SA) coverage on my licenses and a new version has just been released.  My SA is about to expire, do I have rights to this new version?”

Blog: Among other things, “New Version Rights for Software Assurance” can be one of the more attractive and valuable SA benefits.  As outlined in the Product List, for any licensed product covered with active SA, you’re given the right to upgrade and run the latest version of that product that is “made available” during the coverage term.  ”Made Available” effectively means the earlier of the date that Microsoft makes the product available for ordering, or the date that the product is available for download from the VLSC website.

The entire reason I’ve written this post is to address a point of confusion that several of my customers had with the release of some of the Office 2013 and the Office 2013 Server Products.  Microsoft releases a price list on the first of each month. This means that anytime a new product is released through Volume Licensing, it will be made available for purchase on the first of the month.  For instance, Office 2013 and the related server Products such as SharePoint, Lync and Exchange were released in Volume Licensing on December 1^st, 2012.  However, these products were added to the VLSC website for download on October 28^th, 2012.  The end result?  Customers with active SA in October 2012, were given rights to use the newer 2013 version Office, and Office Server Products because they were “made available” during the time of their active SA coverage.  

Some customers also ask, do I have to renew SA to receive the “New Version Rights for Software Assurance?” Although these customers can choose to renew their SA coverage at their next opportunity or they can choose not renew and ultimately, because their SA was active when the product was added to the VLSC website – they have perpetual rights* to use these Products. They have the right to upgrade and use them immediately, or wait till a later date to do so even if their SA coverage expires. What matters is that they were covered with active SA at the time the product was “made available”.

 (*Note- as long as they have a perpetual Agreement type and not a subscription agreement where the licenses are provided for the duration of the subscription but have no perpetual use rights associated)

Inevitably, the next question that comes our way is, “How do I tell when these products were added to the VLSC website?”  In all cases, customers can refer to the Product List.  I have included an example above.

The first part of the Product List contains a table, which among other things, lists the date available for all products.  As highlighted above, the date available is 10/12 – which in this case, indicates the products were added to the VLSC in October 2012. 

In closing, “New Version Rights for Software Assurance” rights are given to the customer when the product is made available for sale on the Price List, or when the product is added to the VLSC website – whichever comes first.  If you do not have access to the VLSC to check when a product was added, you can refer to the Product List as show in the example above.

This is one scenario, and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Summary: What can I do when I am not ready to move to the latest product or I have a legacy application and need to run a prior version of Microsoft Software? I see only the latest products for sale.

Let me explain your Downgrade Rights!  

Determining which version of Microsoft software you have a right to run, known as your downgrade rights, depends on the channel through which the software was purchased; Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Retail (FPP), or Volume Licensing (VL) and also when it was purchased.

Blog:

One of the most common questions our Licensing Team answers involves how to determine downgrade rights. 

Downgrade rights are a benefit of purchasing in the Volume Licensing channel and are also granted to some products sold via the Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), and to a lesser degree the Retail (FPP) channels.  For OEM and FPP software, if available, downgrade rights will be specifically detailed in the License Terms (formerly called the End User License Agreement EULA) that accompany the software.

NOTE: Downgrade rights are not a Software Assurance (SA) Benefit.  There seems to be some confusion on this subject.  Software enrolled in SA has downgrade rights, but not because downgrade rights are a SA benefit.  Rather, it is because enrolling OEM and FPP (Full Package Product, retail) software in SA converts the licenses to Volume Licensing licenses.

Downgrade Rights generally apply to the version (here, version refers to year) of the software, but occasionally also involve editions (here, editions refer to named version like – Enterprise, Standard, Professional, and Datacenter) of the software.  In these cases to differentiate them, Microsoft refers to them as Down-Edition rights. 

Let’s use Windows Server as our example.  Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard edition and Windows Server 2012 Standard edition are two different versions of the same product; 2008 R2 versus 2012.  When Windows Server 2012 Standard edition is purchased via the Volume Licensing channel the customer has downgrade rights to any prior Version of the Standard edition of Windows Server.  Windows Server 2012 Standard downgrades to Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard.

Because of changes made to the licensing of Windows Server with the release of the 2012 version and because of the elimination of the Windows Server Enterprise edition, Windows Server 2012 Standard edition also has Down-Edition rights in addition to Downgrade Rights.  When purchased through a volume license agreement these rights are listed in the Product Use Rights (PUR).  The PUR applies to software sold via the Volume Licensing channel and is the equivalent of the License Terms that accompany OEM and FPP software.  The Down-Edition rights for Windows Server 2012 Standard edition allow running an instance of Windows Server Essentials or Enterprise (of the same or any earlier version) in place of the Standard edition in any of the licensed OSEs.

If you own OEM or FPP Windows Server 2012 Standard edition the downgrade rights will be listed in the License Terms in a section generally titled “Downgrade”.  For OEM & FPP software you may use an earlier version of the following editions of Windows Server; Standard, Enterprise, Web Server, and HPC Server.  It’s important to know which channel the software was purchased through (Volume Licensing, OEM, FPP, etc.) and when it was purchased in order to determine what downgrade rights and down-edition rights (if any) you have.  The PUR is published quarterly and is downloadable on the Microsoft Volume Licensing website here.  The PUR that is in effect when you purchase your license governs your use of the software (See another one of our Blog Posts “Knowing Which PUR Applies” for more details on this).

It is also important to understand that although Microsoft grants downgrade rights we do not necessarily provide the means (media and product keys) to downgrade.  So what does this mean?  In order to downgrade software you will need the bits of the earlier version or edition and a product key.  Microsoft only supplies bits and product keys to Volume License customers and only for certain versions and editions of the software.  Volume Licensing customers have access to the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC) where they will have access to the current version and the prior version of the software they have licensed.  We refer to the current version of software as version “n” and the prior version of the software as n-1.  There are also certain core Microsoft products that we provide n-2 and occasionally n-3 versions of the software via the VLSC.  Software titles where n-2 and n-3 versions are available can be viewed here.  If you have legally obtained physical media for earlier Microsoft products that your organization is currently licensed to use through downgrade rights, you may use that media for downgrades.

There is also a very comprehensive Licensing Brief on Downgrade Rights available on the Microsoft Volume Licensing website that may be viewed here.

Determining downgrade rights can be complicated and requires a thorough reading of all applicable licensing documents pertaining to the specific product and channel.  Occasionally, there will be restrictions and caveats pertaining to the exact nature of the downgrade rights.

This is one scenario and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Summary: Microsoft publishes the Product Use Rights, commonly known as the PUR, on a quarterly basis. Because the use rights and license terms change, knowing which PUR you should be using when evaluating a licensing model, contemplating a purchase or downgrade, and evaluating compliance is important.  Here is a basic explanation.

Blog: When you purchase a software license through a Microsoft Volume Licensing program, the terms and conditions for how you can use that software is primarily defined in the Product Use Rights, or PUR.  The Product Use Rights is an official legally binding document that you agree to follow in the license program Agreement you sign when purchasing licenses. 

To learn more about the other Licensing documents, otherwise known as the “Licensing Stack,” which may affect your use of your products, please see our Licensing Stack blog post.  

A common question our Licensing Team gets in one form or another is, “which PUR should I be using?”  This is especially common if you have licenses for several editions of the same software, or have Software Assurance coverage which gives you rights to a new version. 

Here is general guidance:

For Current and Future Versions of a Product: When you buy a license(s) for a Microsoft  Products through a Volume License Program (e.g. Open Business, Open Value, Select, EA), the Product Use Rights in effect on date the agreement becomes effective, will apply.  For future versions, the Product Use Rights in effect when those future versions are released, will apply. 

For example, if you buy a license for SharePoint 2013 in December 2012 on a new Agreement, which starts on December 2012 – you should refer to the October 2012 PUR (which was the most current version of the PUR that was available in December 2012). Generally, PUR’s are released in the months of January, April, July and October.    

Let’s continue with this example, and let’s say you buy another SharePoint 2013 Server license later the next calendar year under the same Agreement. You should still refer to the October 2012 PUR because SharePoint 2013 is still the current version of the Product, and the second license was purchased on the same Agreement that was originally started in December 2012.

Let’s continue using the same example above with SharePoint 2013 Server licenses purchased on an Agreement started in December 2012.  With these licenses, let’s say you also purchased Software Assurance (SA) coverage, which aligns to the duration or term of agreement and has new version rights as one of the many benefits.  If during the term of your SA coverage, a new version of SharePoint Server is released and you decide to move to the newest version of SharePoint – the PUR in effect for the new version released will apply.  If you choose to the new version, you MUST use the PUR for that new version as outlined above. Also if you purchase a license for that new version, the current PUR, when that version was released will apply.*

*Please note that this does not apply to Online Services.

For Prior Versions aka Downgrades:  In many cases, we understand you buy licenses, through a volume license program, for current versions of Products with the specific intent on downgrading to a prior version of that Product.  When this is the case, you must use the PUR in effect on the Agreement start date for the version you licensed – not the version you will downgrade to and deploy or run. 

This is a particularly common question when the license model for a Product changes significantly with the newest version.  For example, if you buy SQL 2012 licenses, which have moved from the Processor to Core licensing model under a VL Agreement of some type – but deploy 2008 R2 (the server/cal model remains for some editions) instead of the SQL 2012 you purchased – you are still required to use the PUR in effect for the version licensed (e.g. 2012) as described in the section above.

As is the case with most all licensing related topics – there can always be exceptions for certain Products or Programs.  These exceptions are generally called out in your Agreement Terms and Conditions or T’s and C’s, or the Product List. 

The most common exceptions are for Online Services, which generally always require you to follow the most current PUR, or for Products which have a significant change in licensing model when a new version is released, which in my experience is quite rare.  These exceptions will depend completely upon the Product, and decisions made by each Product Group.  Such exceptions will always be called out in the Product List.  When in doubt over which Product Use Rights document applies to a particular piece of software, always consult your licensing resources such as your Agreement, the PUR, Product List, or contact your reseller or account team.

The current PUR and 10+ year archive can be downloaded here.

This is one scenario and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Summary: Understanding how your software is licensed and knowing what your rights are includes having an understanding of the licensing stack, knowing the licensing terms in various documents that apply to your use of the software, and how licensing documents affect one another.  If you are a Volume Licensing customer, this is especially important to optimize your use rights. 

 How did you purchase?

Purchased Via a Retail Store or Microsoft Store or if the Software Came with the Computer/Server/Hardware (OEM)

Microsoft describes your Use Rights for the software you purchased via this method in a document named the License Terms.  License Terms were previously called the End User License Agreement (EULA).  Individual License Terms for all OEM and retail Microsoft products come with the software and you generally have to agree to the terms before you finish installing or initially use the software.

Purchased Via Microsoft Website - Online Services

Microsoft describes your Use Rights for the software you purchased via this method in the License Terms when you run the set-up for the Online Services you will be presented with the license terms and will generally have to agree to the terms before you finish installing or initially use the software. There is also an Online Services Use Rights document that outlines the use rights and is located on the Microsoft Licensing site.

Purchased Via an Agreement with Microsoft or a Reseller – Volume Licensing

For the Volume License customer, all License Terms for all products sold via the Volume Licensing channel are published together in a document named the Product Use Rights (PUR). 

License Terms within the Product Use Rights document are subdivided into three sections:

1.  Universal License Terms, these license terms apply universally to all products and online services licensed under your Volume License Agreement.  These Universal License Terms are at the base or lowest level of license terms.  Think of them as the base layer of a wedding cake. 

2.  General License Terms, these terms apply generally to all the software licensed by a specific licensing model.  There are eleven different licensing models for software and online services sold via the Volume Licensing channel, each with unique General License Terms.  For example we sell SQL by core-licensing and in the server/CAL model. These are the next layer of our wedding cake.  Any license term in the General License Terms takes precedence over any Universal License Term. 

3.  Product Specific License Terms, these terms apply for each individual product.  These form the next layer of our wedding cake.  Any License Term in the Product Specific license Terms takes precedence over License Terms in the General and Universal License Terms.  Above this are Additional Terms which also apply to the specific product or online service.  These form the top layer of our wedding cake.  All of this knowledge can be gleaned from reading the PUR.

So what does this mean?  It means that a specific license term in the Universal License Terms that you are familiar with might be overwritten by another license term for a specific product someplace else in the PUR. 

Here is an example:

Let’s look at License Reassignment.  In the Universal License Terms we find that most, but not all licenses may be reassigned from one device to another, but not on a short-term basis, meaning not within 90 days of the last reassignment.  Microsoft Created License Mobility Within Server Farms to enable moving licenses more frequently than 90 days without having to rescind License Mobility rules.  This use right is described in the General License Terms for appropriate licensing models.  License Mobility Within Server Farms allows reassigning licenses on a short-term basis.  We find out which server software has this right by looking in the Product Specific License Terms for each product.  To keep things interesting, License Mobility Within Server Farms for SQL Server Standard (licensed per Server/Cal) requires active Software Assurance (SA) coverage.  We find this described in the Additional Terms for SQL Server 2012 Standard.

After reviewing the license terms in the PUR we look to the Product List for specific details not found in the PUR.  The Product List contains the following categories of information about products and services sold via the Volume Licensing channel:

• Discontinued products and services
• Software and product designation regarding product pools
• Point values for each software and product technology
• Promotions
• Migration paths from one version of software to another version of that same software
• Migration paths from discontinued software to new software versions
• Software Assurance benefits
• Notes and information specific to software and products

It isn’t that we expect to find license terms in the Product List that countermand something in the PUR, although that is possible, rather we are mainly looking for additional license terms.  Information we find in the Product List does take precedence over license terms in the PUR.  Think of these License Terms as yet another layer for our wedding cake.

Back to our License Mobility Within Server Farms example, we find in the Product List that if server licenses that have License Mobility Within Server Farms also have Software Assurance (SA) coverage they gain the SA benefit of License Mobility through Software Assurance.  License Mobility through Software Assurance allows you move certain on-premise licenses covered by Software Assurance to third party shared servers.

Next we look to your Volume License Agreement for license terms that will influence your product and services licensing.  The terms and conditions in your Enrollment are next in line of importance.  Next in line of importance is the Signature Form followed by the terms and conditions in the Master Agreement, followed by terms outlined in the MBSA.

For example there are special licensing considerations for EA customers.  One of them is that for Enterprise Products (Windows Desktop OS, Office Professional Plus and the Core Cal or ECAL) if a new version of the product has more restrictive rights than the version that was current at the start of the enrollment, those more restrictive rights will not apply to the Enrolled Affiliate’s use of that product during the term of the enrollment.

And sometimes the customer has a choice on which rights to follow.  For most all Volume License Customers (depending on the Agreement they’ve used to purchase their products), the Product Use Rights (PUR) in effect on the effective date of the Enrollment will apply to the Enrolled Affiliate’s use of then-current versions of software.  For future versions of software (new releases), the PUR in effect when those versions are first released will apply.  In both cases, subsequent changes made by Microsoft to the PUR for a particular product will not apply to the Enrolled Affiliate’s use of that version of the product, unless the customer chooses to have the changes apply.  See another post in in our blog “Knowing which PUR Applies,” for more details around this subject.

To summarize, if there is a conflict in terms and conditions or use rights between any of the documents that is not resolved in the documents themselves, then the terms will take effect in the following order; (1) the terms of the MBSA, (2) the terms and conditions in the Master Agreement, (3) the terms and conditions of the accompanying signature form, (4) the terms and conditions in the Enrollment, (5) the Product List, (6) the Product Use Rights, (7) any other documents, and (8) all orders submitted under this agreement.

This is one scenario and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Summary: What’s the difference, aren’t they both for disaster recovery? Aren’t they the same thing? Fail-over Rights and “Cold” Disaster Recovery Rights serve two different, but similar purposes. For SQL Server, “Cold” Disaster Recovery (DR) Rights are a Software Assurance (SA) Benefit while Fail-over Rights do not require SA coverage, but to get the maximum benefit of Fail-over Rights you will want to consider SA coverage for your SQL Server licenses.

Scenario: Your department is implementing a SQL Server solution and you will need DR for your mission critical business processes, but you don’t fully understand the differences between Fail-over Rights and “Cold” Disaster Recovery Rights.  Don’t worry! We’ve prepared a comparison for you to help you decide which DR scenario is right for you and your business.

Fail-over versus “Cold” Disaster Recovery Rights Summary.

Explanation:

Fail-over Rights for Microsoft SQL Server do not require Software Assurance (SA) coverage.  For any Operating System Environment (OSE) in which you are running instances of SQL Server you may use up to the same number of “passive fail-over” Running Instances in a separate OSE on ANY Server for temporary support.  You may run the passive fail-over instances on a server other than the licensed server.  A passive SQL Server instance is one that is not serving SQL Server data to clients or running active SQL Server workloads.

Take note:

Special requirements if you are licensed for SQL Server 2012 per Core.  If you are licensing SQL Server 2012 per Cores and the OSE in which you use the passive fail-over Running Instances is on a separate server, the number of Physical/Virtual Cores on the separate server must not exceed the number of Physical/Virtual Cores on the Licensed Server and the Core Factor for the Physical Processors in that server must be the same or lower than the Core Factor of the Physical Processors of the Licensed Server.  To summarize, the fail-over cannot otherwise have a higher/larger licensing requirement than the primary/active server. 

Here is where it gets interesting.  You do not require SA for SQL Server Fail-over Rights, but once you activate the Passive Fail-Over server in a DR then that Passive Fail-over becomes the active server (during a fail-over event) and it must be fully licensed for SQL Server.  You can accomplish this by assigning new licenses to the (now active) passive server, or by reassigning existing licenses from the primary server to the backup server once the instances of SQL Server on the primary server are inactive and no longer performing SQL Server workloads.

Next you must consider what happens when you want to move your workload away from the formerly passive now active DR server to the original physical hardware - you will need to move the SQL licenses or reassign them. 

The basic rule of license reassignment is that most, but not all, licenses may be reassigned from one device to another, but not on a short-term basis (meaning not within 90 days of the last reassignment).  This short-term basis rule applies to SQL Server 2012.  What this means is that your SQL Server 2012 licenses without SA may only be reassigned (moved to another server) once every 90 days.  This may not fit your fail-over strategy very well.  If you can live with the passive server being your active server for the next 90 days, you need no further licensing.  However, if you have another fail-over event within 90 days you may not move the licenses to a fail-over server.  To not be bound by the 90 day short-term reassignment rule you would require License Mobility within Server Farms, which for SQL Server 2012, requires active SA coverage.  The bottom line is - to get the maximum benefit of SQL Server 2012 Fail-over Rights you require active SA coverage.

Fail-Over Rights are described in the Product Use Rights (PUR) and are listed in the Additional Terms section for the SQL Server editions.  A more complete explanation of Fail-over Rights is included in the Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Licensing Guide.

“Cold” Disaster Recovery Rights are a Software Assurance (SA) Benefit for qualified server licenses which includes SQL Server.  Customers with active SA on their SQL Server licenses and related CALs (if licensed via the Server/CAL licensing model) are eligible for complementary server licenses for disaster recovery purposes.

For each qualifying license the customer has enrolled in SA including all related CALs (if required by the product and licensing model) the customer will be deemed to have a second (complementary) server license with which they may deploy the same product on a “cold” back-up server solely for Disaster Recovery (DR) purposes.  This benefit expires with the customer’s SA coverage.

The “Cold” Disaster Recovery Server must meet the following requirements:

• The server must be turned off except for limited software self-testing and patch management, or disaster recovery. . (customers who are virtualizing must keep the physical host server powered down)
• The DR server may not be in the same cluster as the production server.
• You may run the backup and production instances at the same time only while recovering the production instance from a disaster.
• Your right to run the DR instance ends when your SA coverage ends.

“Cold” Disaster Recovery Rights are explained in both the Product Use Rights (PUR) (Appendix 2: Software Assurance Benefits) and the Product List (Section 7 – Software Assurance (SA) Benefits and Online Services (OLS) Benefits.

This is one scenario and licensing situation. Each customer scenario can vary by deployment, usage, product version, and product use rights.  Always check your contract, and the current Products Use Rights document to confirm how your environment should be fully licensed.  The blogging team does not warrant that this scenario will be the right licensing solution for other similar cases.

Our mission is to make licensing easier to understand. We eat, sleep, and breathe licensing and are eager to share what we know in this forum. In the simplest of terms, we explain it. Collectively, we’ve been doing this one customer at a time for the past decade. We hope to share answers to common questions and dispel misconceptions so feel free to comment on scenarios and suggest future topics.

We’re part of the Commercial Presales and Licensing organization, but don’t let the name confuse you our main focus is Volume Licensing.  We provide worldwide support for all of Microsoft’s channels; Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM), Retail, Volume Licensing, Service Provider (SPLA), Independent Software Vendor (ISV), you name it. We LOVE licensing and work hard to explain Microsoft licensing.

Our team has a breadth and depth of licensing experience that we are eager to share and we’ll use this Blog to bring you timely and important descriptions of licensing scenarios that we are fielding on a daily basis.

We hope you enjoy reading our posts as much as we enjoy bringing them to you.