Microsoft Server 2012 and Client Access Licenses (CALs)

Anyone who works with Microsoft Server (and other MS products) knows that licensing these products can be a minefield for a system administrator or IT director. The most common form or licensing for volume users is the server and client access license (CAL) model. This involves purchasing a server license and then an access license for each user or device that accesses that server.

The above image from Microsoft is a good illustration of this model.
On the left we show a situation where Device CAL's make sense because in this example multiple people are accessing just a few PC's. Think of a situation like a call center where shifts of workers share a bank of computers. In this case purchasing device CAL's makes more sense (and costs less).

On the right it shows that User CAL's are more suitable for an environment where you may have more computers (notebooks, tablets etc) than users - for example if you have people accessing servers from home, the road and the office. A single user CAL will allow all of these devices access to the network server resources.

Historically Microsoft CAL's cost the same whether they are Device or User... however that has now changed. If you are looking to buy CAL's it's worth carefully calculating the cost of User versus Device CAL's. User CAL's are now more expensive as Microsoft has probably anticipated that people will be accessing data from more devices.

Now the complexity with CAL's doesn't end with the User/Device question, you also have to be aware of which version of the Microsoft Server your users are accessing. For example Bob gets a new job as a sys admin for Company X. They are all using servers based on Microsoft Server Std. 2008 R2 and they have 100 CAL's for everyone to access these servers. Bob, being a capable guy, wants to spin up a new Server 2012 for a new software platform Company X wants to implement. Bob purchases a new server license for roughly $880 and gets the software up and running, but what Bob didn't realize is that his User CAL's did not have Software Assurance (upgrade protection) and are only valid for Server 2008 R2. He'll need to purchase new CAL's to enable access to this new implementation of Server 2012. That's roughly 100 x $31($3100) to add to this project budget. This same CAL issue also exists with Exchange, SQL, Project, SharePoint etc.

So are there ways to avoid this problem? Well yes, there are: You can buy your licenses with Software Assurance based on 2 or 3 years duration. The 3 year option can also be purchased as an annual annuity payment. Alternatively you can purchase your licensing as a subscription (renting your licenses) which gives you access to the newest licenses (but you never really own the licenses).

From my experience with Microsoft licensing the annuity Software Assurance (SA) works very well, as IT admins can buy new licensing now (at 1/3 of the price) with a known annuity cost in years 2 and 3. Then after that they have the option to just renew the SA (which is much less) as the licenses are now fully paid up. This stops the IT department from worrying about new deployment costs as they always have access to the newest software release through their Software Assurance benefits. Software Assurance is available on a full range of licensed products from servers to Office and even the Windows OS. You normally purchase it with the license, or within 90 days of an eligible license purchase.