Anyone understand CALS/licensing?

mr2nut

I have an issue with some Servers with trying to understand how it all works. I have this so far....


SBS requires CALs to be installed on the Server to provide access to clients and won't operate without.

(As far as I can see) Standard is more of a trust policy with MS and will simply allow as many connections as you want and you buy CALs to associate with your Servers license key in the event that you have an assesment for your licensing, am I right?


....anyway..... From what I have read, the license logging Service was disabled for Server 2003 as it was an NT/legacy Service that could help admins manage their CALs but these days as it's so complex, it is disabled out of the box. The only problem is, we have installed a Terminal Server and was planning on letting the auto discovery Service find the licensing Server (in my case w2k3-server2). When I launch Terminal Server Licensing from the Terminal Server, it says "No Terminal Server licensing Server is available in the current domain or workgroup. To connect to another license server, click Action, click Connect, and then type the server name"

If I enable the License Logging Service on w2k3-server2, it then allows me to go into Licensing under Administrative Tools but under the purchase history tab, it claims that they haven't bought any CALs and I know for sure that they are fully up to date and very much legal when it comes to this sort of thing... it's quite confusing.


Does this make any sense to anyone?

stephens316

Sounds like you need to setup licensing for TS?

I found this article it might help
How to override the license server discovery process in Windows Server 2003 Terminal Services

If you google you can find the information.

I personally have setup Licensing with out any cals at all and been able to work just fine I have entered per device just seems better to me, then I extend it to like 500 clients just so I know there are enough out there. I have not had any problems I am not sure exactly what deal is because I have enterprise licensing through the government and do not have to deal buying license except when upgrading servers to make sure I have the server license that is the only thing required for me. I know that the main purpose of CALS is for auditing to make sure compliance, but that is handled by government.

Silentsoul

what is your definition of 'Understand'

tpatt100

It changes every time. Long time ago I set up Citrix for Office applications. It saved money because we only wanted 100 copies of Office and not everyone had to work from home. Also TS CAL came with Win2K for each client. Then Microsoft changed the terms and if Office touched a box it required a license for "that box" so that blew the cost savings out the Window.

Fugazi1000

It varies per product (i.e. a server product or an office product).

You can also have User, Device or CPU based licensing depending on needs (and product).

These can be mixed if reqd.