Historically, as a developer, you’ve always known about SharePoint, but it was always the giant at the other end of the playground that you never felt would come close enough for you to feel to threatened. As long as you stayed away from high-end bespoke enterprise development, you could leave the embattled IT managers of this world to try and restrain the beast.
But, just as you felt comfortable enough to take your eye off it, MOSS’s little brother, WSS, joined your school and, whilst smaller than big bro, he’s got that same swagger, that confidence and, what’s more, here’s in your year and organising all the games you liked to play.
He’s also giving sweets away for free.
So now you’re worried if you don’t join in, you may alienate yourself. The problem is twofold: firstly you need to find out how he plays these games so that you get along with him and, secondly, whilst it seems free to join, you’re not sure if that’s an open invitation for you to bring your mates with you. Maybe you can bring your mates, but what about your extranet partners and customers who want to join in on the internet?
The first issue I describe in my abhorrently obscure analogical way is one of a technical nature and I will elaborate further as I delve deeper, but, here I want to discuss that other issue – licensing. Yes I said it. I apologise to those sensitive souls I have just offended with such colourful language. Unfortunately, there is no escaping the beast, El Licenso. Even if you are a developer, there can be nothing more dejecting than spending time on a great solution if you are not aware of the entire deployment costs for that solution. Ultimately, it may well be down to the end user to ensure they meet the licensing requirements, but if you have not informed them, you could well be in for an uncomfortable conversation.
The most talked about issue concerning the licensing of Microsoft Products though, is not so much the cost, but the clarity. And therein lies the crux of the problem. People are not just unsure about what licensing they may require for a proposed solution, but what licensing they should currently have. It’s like opening the Pandora’s box of IT infrastructure. Once you’ve decided to take stock on what started as a simple audit, the fear is that you may end up with no new hardware but a hefty bill running into the many thousands.
So let me cut to the chase. I want to dispel a few myths and state a few facts. When it comes to WSS, the first fact is simple. It is free. The first myth is that you cannot use it externally. That is untrue. WSS *itself* incurs *zero* licensing costs in any setup you imagine. The costs you may incur are simply related to the server on which is it hosted and any SQL server instance that it uses. However, you may already have covered the license costs for these items and do not need to pay extra simply to use WSS. Rather than explain my findings in conversation that can suffer from ambiguity, let me list the various licensing costs of Windows Server 2008 and SQL Server 2008 regardless of whether WSS is used or not. First a couple of definitions:
User CAL – a license used *in addition to the server license* that covers 1 additional user to be authenticated against that machine. A user that is not authenticated by the machine does not require a CAL to use that particular machine.
Processor license- a license that covers an unlimited number of authenticated (or unauthenticated) users to access that particular machine. This license is used against a physically complete processor, not processor cores, so a Dual Quad Core Xeon machine requires 2 processor licenses, *NOT* 8.
Microsoft External Connector License (ECL)- a license that covers providing external access to your server from outside your internal network (i.e. a company website hosted on a DMZ for instance). This is required whether or not the external access is authenticated.
Now on to the flavours of Windows Server 2008 and their *approximate* UK licensing cost:
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Standard (includes 10 CALS) = £1000
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Enterprise (includes 25 CALS) = £2500
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 CALs (20) = £500
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 Web Edition Single Processor License (Internet, No CALs req.) = £500 *N.B* Cannot be used on an internal network, but does not require ECL.
- Microsoft Windows Server 2008 DataCenter – 2 processors = £3000
N.B. Authentication is *NOT* limited to AD, but any form of authentication. The simple rule is that if any feature on the machine (IIS, Share Network Folder etc.) is setup to recognise individuals, then those individuals require a user CAL each. The exceptions to this rule are the processor license based DataCenter Server and Web Edition.
So far, so good. Now on to data storage. First of all, WSS does not use SQl Express. It uses SqlServer Embedded Engine. This is important as SSEE has *NO* data limit, whereas SQL Express has a maximum of 4GB.
Whilst this is great for data size, it may not be ideal for critical business practise that requires backup, reliability, fail-over, performance etc.
So, what are the costs of beefing up your data storage?
- SQL Server 2008 Enterprise (Single Processor License) = £20000
- SQL Server 2008 Standard (Single Processor License) = £5000
- SQL Server 2008 Enterprise 25 CALS = £12000
- SQL Server 2008 Standard 10 CALS = £2000
- SQL Server Web Edition (Single Processor, Internet Only, no Cals req.) = £3000
- SQL Server 2008 Standard User Cal = £150
- SQL Server 2008 Enterprise User Cal = £80 (requires a 1 standard CAL per enterprise CAL)
So, using the above information as a guide, the following examples demonstrate the sort of costs you may face for various WSS installations. Please note you should be aware of other mitigating factors such as network bandwidth, hosting costs, back up requirements etc. all of which will impact the overall cost of any solution you may decide to implement. All costs are approximate.
WSS Install Examples
Example A: Internal server. No authentication. No external access.
1 @ 2008 Standard Server (10 CAL included) £1000
Total:
£1000
Example B: Internal server. 50 *internal* Users authenticated. No external access.
1 @ 2008 Standard Server (10 CAL included) £1000
2 @ 20 x 2008 User CAls £1000
Total:
£2000
Example C: Internal server. 50 *internal* Users authenticated. No external access. SQL Data Backup required.
1 @ 2008 Standard Server (10 CAL included) £1000
2 @ 20 x 2008 User CAls £1000
1 @ 1 x Processor SQL 2008 Standard License £5000
Total
£7000
N.B. must be hosted on a single processor machine
Example D: Internal server. 50 *internal* Users authenticated. External access for *unauthenticated* users.
1 @ 2008 Standard Server (10 CAL included) £1000
2 @ 20 x 2008 User CALs £1000
1 @ Microsoft External Connector License £2000
Total
£4000
Example E: Internal server. 200 authenticated external users (plus any number of authenticated internal users).
1 @ 2008 Server DataCenter £3000
1 @ Microsoft External Connector License £2000
Total
£5000
Example F: Internal server. 50 internal and 500 + external users, all authenticated. SQL Data Backup required
1 @ 2008 Server DataCenter £3000
1 @ SQL Server 2008 Standard 1 Processor £5000
1 @ Microsoft External Connector License £2000
Total
£10,000
N.B. Single Process machine only
Example G: External server. No internal Users (AD). All users authenticated.
1 @ Server 2008 Web Edition £500
1 @ SQL 2008 Server Web Edition £3500
Total
£4000
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