Licensing Test Servers

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Licensing Test Servers

iadams

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April 1, 2005 at 1:15 pm

#85517

I want to confirm...
Do I need to License a "test server" if its just a QA box and we have a fully licensed live box?
Do I have to license the box the developers share to play around on. They have developer editions that come with Visual Studio.

-Isaiah

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Jim P. SSCrazy Eights Points: 8725 More actions · Answer 1

As our companies understanding is.....

If the box is not to be used in production you do not need to license it.

Also you can have a disaster recovery box set up and as long as it is not used in production you do not need to license. In the case of a real disaster the licenses assinged to the original box go to the DR box. (That is of course assuming on processor license model it has less than or equal number of processors.)

That's our story and we're sticking to it.

----------------
Jim P.

A little bit of this and a little byte of that can cause bloatware.

Scott Thornburg Hall of Fame Points: 3347 More actions · Answer 2

By no means am I a licensing specialist, but we put SQL Server Developer's Edition on our Dev and QA boxes, at something like $35 a box. In my view, it's not worth investigating at that point.

Scott Thornburg

Nikolay Chernavsky Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 573 More actions · Answer 3

Per Microsoft

"Take advantage of new pricing for SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition. You can now license SQL Server Developer Edition for only $49.95 US.

You can obtain development licenses for installations of SQL Server that are part of your development environment. SQL Server Developer Edition is licensed per developer and must be used for designing, developing, and testing purposes only. SQL Server Developer Edition has all of the functionality of SQL Server Enterprise Edition. You may not use it as a passive failover server or for disaster recovery.

SQL Server installations that are part of your day-to-day operations require production licenses."

I beleive that last paragraph implies that there is no need for licensing of testing platform. Hope this helps.

Nikolay Chernavsky Mr or Mrs. 500 Points: 573 More actions · Answer 4

One more addition from MS FAQ on Licensing...

Q.		What is SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition and how is it licensed?

A.

SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition is licensed per developer and must be used for designing, developing, and testing purposes only.

Looks like Developer license is required for anything other than production.

iadams SSCommitted Points: 1920 More actions · Answer 5

I just got off the phone with MS...

License your test/devlopment area with Developer licenses.

License production with Production Licenses. Active/Active needs a license for each Active node. Active/Passive needs only the Active to be licensed as no clients are seeing more than one node at a time.

cheers!

-Isaiah