Volume / open licensing question

[iconSYS1]

Hello,

I've just gone completely virtual , so the plan is to use 10 of the old servers for a test enviroment.

Software was purchased through the Open program as a volume license. The question is , when I wipe the old boxes and reload windows 2003 R2 and Windows 2008 on them , am I going to get a bill from Microsoft for 10 copies of Windows 2003 /2008 ?

From their website explaining the program it states :

Your organization and qualified affiliates use a single identification number during the entire two-year agreement. And the pay-as-you-go model eliminates the need to forecast license purchases over the term of the agreement.


If someone knows where I can get more information on this , please let me know.

 

[58sniper]

You still have to have licenses for it to install it. Volume and Open licenses just give you various ways of how to obtain the licenses. If you have 10 licenses, then you're set. If you have only 1, then you need to acquire more.

On the flip side, you don't mention what's CURRENTLY on those boxes. If they currently have 2003/2008, and you had licenses for THOSE, reloading them with the same OS is fine. YMMV.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[iconSYS1]

Ok , so this might sound silly , but how do I know if I have 10 unused licenses? I go to eopen.microsoft.com and see I have 24 different MAKs and Keys for different versions of windows 2003 and windows 2008. It doesnt show me how many are in use or anything.

 

[58sniper]

You need to audit your environment.

Pat Richard MVP
Plan for performance, and capacity takes care of itself. Plan for capacity, and suffer poor performance.

http://www.ucblogs.net/blogs/exchange/

 

[Roadki11]

Get yourself a technet subscription. It gives you access to MS software for testing purposes. Its cheap and has other benifits also.

RoadKi11

"This apparent fear reaction is typical, rather than try to solve technical problems technically, policy solutions are often chosen." - Fred Cohen

 

[Hondy]

If you have bought them via Open License then you can look at your account on

https://eopen.microsoft.com

and it will tell you how many you have.

With Volume licensing you have the ability to install more than you own but this doesn't mean you are correctly licensed.
You won't automatically get a bill, you need to purchase them in advance.

Open license agreement means you are not committed to buy a certain amount of licenses in the sense that you there is no committment to buying an agreed amount of licenses just to keep your agreement active. That is... if you had a "Select" agreement rather than an "Open" agreement then you have to buy a certain amount within the agreement period otherwise you will lose your "select" status and have to go back to buying them under the "open" agreement... but you still have to buy them if you intend to use them.

If it's just for a test environment you probably want to be looking at MSDN anyway.

If your "old" servers have COA labels on (the one with a product key and COA number on) then you'll need to buy more licenses as these stay with the server that you are scrapping.

So in short, visit the eopen site and it will tell you how many you have. If you have bought under the Select agreement then look at licensing.microsoft.com

By the sounds of it you have no record of the licenses at all, in which case you aren't licensed and you will need to buy some for a live environment.

I hope this helps somewhat

Cheers