SQL 2012 licensing - seriously - WTF ?

jibbajabba

SQL 2012 Editions & Licensing Announced … What Are They Smoking?

blargoe

I surely hope they still allow multiple instances on the per-core license, or I'm going to be in a world of hurt.

jibbajabba

Read this and wheep :

Common Windows VM Virtualisation Licensing Mistakes


I wonder how many people are "illegal" - funnily enough - we got two official Microsoft document contradicting themselves .... "funny" ...

it_consultant

I am not sure what the controversy here is. SQL 2008R2 Standard supports most of the HA capabilities that used to be only available in the enterprise edition. Most of us will only need that. If you are truly looking at an "enterprise" number of connections, per proc makes more sense anyway.

blargoe

I pulled this from Microsoft's SQL 2012 licensing FAQ:

15. How do I migrate from processor licenses to core licenses? What is the migration path?
Licenses purchased with Software Assurance (SA) will upgrade to SQL Server 2012 at no additional cost. EA/EAP customers can continue buying processor licenses until your next renewal after June 30, 2012. At that time, processor licenses will be exchanged for core-based licenses sufficient to cover the cores in use by processor-licensed databases (minimum of 4 cores per processor for Standard and Enterprise, and minimum of 8 EE cores per processor for Datacenter).
16. How will SQL Server processor licenses with SA be exchanged for SQL Server 2012 core licenses? How will I (and Microsoft) determine the number of cores that I am owed?
You can perform a “self-inventory” of your environment at the end of the Software Assurance (SA) term that will provide the basis for the core licenses you will own and for which you are eligible to renew SA. We will provide access to the Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Toolkit as one way to help track and document deployments. This tool can help you plan the transition from processor-based licenses to core-based licenses by counting both processors and cores across your deployments. If you are not able to document your SQL Server deployments, we will exchange processors based on a standard conversion ratio. We encourage you to work with your Microsoft or Partner representative to determine an optimal transition plan.

So it sounds like, if I have SA, if I decommission my 2-socket, quad core physical servers and install SQL Enterprise Edition on a 2-socket, 12-core box instead, they'll just give me 24 core licenses per server...

SteveLord

Geez. We are about to buy two dual cpu servers for a database project. Bad enough each license costs us over $4k per cpu. >

blargoe

it_consultant wrote: »

I am not sure what the controversy here is. SQL 2008R2 Standard supports most of the HA capabilities that used to be only available in the enterprise edition. Most of us will only need that. If you are truly looking at an "enterprise" number of connections, per proc makes more sense anyway.

It's a big deal if you're swapping out hardware for newer servers and licensing per processor, regardless of edition. The socket to core licensing conversion is 1:4; 4 cores of SE or EE in the new model will cost roughly the same as 1 socket in the old model. If, like me, you were expecting to replace older dual or quad core servers with 8, 10, or 12 core boxes, your licensing and maintenance costs just doubled or tripled.

it_consultant

blargoe wrote: »

It's a big deal if you're swapping out hardware for newer servers and licensing per processor, regardless of edition. The socket to core licensing conversion is 1:4; 4 cores of SE or EE in the new model will cost roughly the same as 1 socket in the old model. If, like me, you were expecting to replace older dual or quad core servers with 8, 10, or 12 core boxes, your licensing and maintenance costs just doubled or tripled.

Yes but Microsoft has to make money somehow, right? From MS' perspective the capability of the new hardware makes it so you would only need one server when in the past you might need 2 or 3. Far be it for me to defend MS but VMWARE has done the same thing with vSphere 5. Since memory has gotten so much cheaper, they said "hey, if you are going to fill a box with a bunch more memory rather than buying more than one server you are going to pay me for it".

blargoe

I'm not criticizing Microsoft, really... I'm primarily concerned worried about exceeding my budget. I'm surprised they didn't make the move sooner, but that doesn't make it any less impactful to me.

it_consultant

And seriously look at whether or not you should just stick with Quad Core Xeons OR invest in a virtualization environment where you can control the number of procs in the guests.

SteveLord

it_consultant wrote: »

And seriously look at whether or not you should just stick with Quad Core Xeons OR invest in a virtualization environment where you can control the number of procs in the guests.

I was under the impression you (currently) pay by the amount physical cpus on the box, whether you are using all of them or not.

it_consultant

I think it is per virtual instance. If you have a VM guest which has 2 procs; you need to license for 2 procs. I would ask my reseller to make sure.

demonfurbie

id like to introduce you to my friend

http://www.mysql.com/

it maybe worth migrating at that price

erpadmin

demonfurbie wrote: »

id like to introduce you to my friend

http://www.mysql.com/

it maybe worth migrating at that price

mySQL is not supported on a lot of Enterprise-level applications (like PeopleSoft, for example.)

For small applications that require a database, mySQL is actually pretty good and can handle a lot of connections at one time.

For enterprise-level applications, there's no way Oracle will shoot itself in the foot by allowing a free RDBMS to supplant its money making RDBMS.

SteveLord

Yeah, that's like trying to convince your business to drop Office for OpenOffice.

demonfurbie

SteveLord wrote: »

Yeah, that's like trying to convince your business to drop Office for OpenOffice.

we did, we were using word perfect and it wouldnt support docx files well so we switched to openoffice, been on it for about 5 years now now its being rolled out to all of the branches.

youd be surprised how much saving them on 1 software suite opens ceos eyes to other than microsoft. just in my small office of 6 computers we saved about 1000.00

erpadmin

SteveLord wrote: »

Yeah, that's like trying to convince your business to drop Office for OpenOffice.

Believe me, if we could go mySQL, we would. However since Oracle owns both mySQL (Sun) and PeopleSoft, they are not going make mySQL a supported platform when they're trying to sell you an Oracle license for their RDBMS. Of course, we had to go to the next best thing...MS SQL Server 2008 R2, since the licenses are much cheaper than Oracle (not to mention, Oracle DBAs tend to want a premium... )

We do use mySQL for one of our payment processors. That's about it though.

SteveLord

demonfurbie wrote: »

we did, we were using word perfect and it wouldnt support docx files well so we switched to openoffice, been on it for about 5 years now now its being rolled out to all of the branches.

youd be surprised how much saving them on 1 software suite opens ceos eyes to other than microsoft. just in my small office of 6 computers we saved about 1000.00

I mean a business larger than a basketball team obviously. Talking enterprise here. It's just not gonna happen.

demonfurbie

SteveLord wrote: »

I mean a business larger than a basketball team obviously. Talking enterprise here. It's just not gonna happen.

the state of alabama

erpadmin

demonfurbie wrote: »

the state of alabama

What were some of your issues in your openoffice rollout? How many end-users are on it and are there any special users that are using MS Office?
Is the state's end-user community all going to be using OpenOffice or just your agency? I ask because I was under the impression that your state's IT infrastructure was decentralized.

SteveLord

demonfurbie wrote: »

the state of alabama

Touche. I am interested now.

demonfurbie

erpadmin wrote: »

What were some of your issues in your openoffice rollout? How many end-users are on it and are there any special users that are using MS Office?
Is the state's end-user community all going to be using OpenOffice or just your agency? I ask because I was under the impression that your state's IT infrastructure was decentralized.

it is decenterlised all the legal will go first thm to the other departments

i didnt have any issues we were using wordperfect and the open office interface is quite similar, the higher ups were happy about saving the cash and hte end users habe a slight learning curve but most of the time they just double clicked on the file and as long as it opened and printed they were fine