Altaris Cloud expands its practice to include End-User Licensing

At Altaris Cloud we’ve always had a deep understanding of how end-user licensing works. In the past we chose to focus exclusively on SPLA as that’s an area where there’s limited expertise in the market, but as we’ve discovered with many of our engagements with hosters and service providers, they often have Enterprise Agreements (EAs) or other end-user licensing agreements to cover what Microsoft software they consume internally (by employees). And they don’t always know the line that divides internal use vs. what’s in their hosted environment.

For example, all too often we see scenarios where a company has several test/dev/qa servers running on hardware that is also has SPLA production servers. The question comes up in these scenarios, does the SPLA give me licenses to cover this? Can I use the MSDN subscriptions I have to cover these servers and the software installed on them? Can I report Visual Studio through SPLA for myself? And what about MPN grants I have, can I use these?

Just as the case is with all Microsoft licensing, the answer is a definitive ... it depends.

Under a SPLA, Service Providers may report Microsoft products for internal use as long as it’s 50 percent of external use.  The primary consideration to keep in mind is that the 50 percent is defined on a per product SKU basis, not a per product family basis. It’s also not free software. For example, if you used/made available 50 SQL Standard – 2 core licenses for hosting purposes, you may use 25 SQL Standard – 2 core licenses for internal purpose.  The total reported SQL Standard -2 core licenses would be 75. However, in this scenario you wouldn’t be able to report 25 SQL Server Standard SALs as that is a different SKU.

So if you are reporting a few copies of Visual Studio through SPLA but it’s for internal use and you actually don’t host any for an end-customer, then the answer is no. You can’t report through SPLA. Further, your MSDN subscriptions don’t come with license mobility rights so there are restrictions to keep in mind when trying to leverage them in environments where hosting and internal use are mixed. 

MPN has restrictions as well. These are required to be used in a development, test, demo, sandbox, or production environment for general internal business purposes and not for any type of commercial purpose. For example, installing the Windows Server operating system and Microsoft Exchange Server to set up an email system that you can use to send business-related email is acceptable. However, production use for external commercial purposes, such as hosting a commercial website, is outside the scope of these rights.

This isn’t just about compliance it’s also about cost-savings and optimization. Knowing what to report through your SPLA agreement, EA, Select or Open agreement can have a huge outcome on your total Microsoft licensing costs.

At Altaris we are not in the business of reselling licenses so the guidance we provide is unbiased. If you are unsure you are balancing your agreements correctly, we can help. To get started either email us at info@altariscloud.com or book a free consultation and so we can better understand your unique situation. 

From your Microsoft Licensing Specialists at Altaris Cloud