“SPLA is the only licensing program that allows commercial hosting for Microsoft products, so is the only option for companies looking to provide a web/cloud based service.”
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The Microsoft Service Provider Licensing Agreement, or SPLA, is designed for organizations that want to offer their customers hosted software services including web services, database services and applications. These include services “you provide to your customers that make Microsoft products available and that display, run, access, or otherwise interact with Microsoft products” through servers “connected to the internet or a private network”.
SPLA is the only licensing program that allows commercial hosting for Microsoft products, so is the only option for companies looking to provide a web/cloud based service.
Offering a hosted service to multiple clients calls for an added degree of flexibility around purchasing and delivering Microsoft software. There are 3 options in the SPLA licensing model:
With SPLA, there are no upfront costs and you pay only for what has been deployed to your customers. This enables Service Providers to be highly flexible and responsive to their customer’s needs, able to increase capacity and even add new services on the fly; all without any potentially costly long-term commitments.
Cloud services, which a hosted solution is, must not only be flexible but also up-to-date – so all products licensed through SPLA include “new version rights”. This means as Microsoft release new versions such as:
and more, Service Providers can include these in their solutions as soon as possible. This helps keep them, and their customers, relevant & competitive in today’s marketplace.
SPLA also gives Service Providers a 60 day trial period for each new deployment, meaning they’re able to deploy and test solutions for new customers without incurring any licensing costs from Microsoft. As not all solutions work for all customers, this is an invaluable benefit enabling hosters to offer their services to the maximum number of potential clients whilst limiting the losses on any failed projects.
SPLA, as with most Microsoft licensing, is a predominantly trust based system and Service Providers simply report back their software usage to their LAR (Large Account Reseller) on a monthly basis. This means Service Providers must be aware of how Microsoft products are licensed (by user, by processor, by core) and how their hardware infrastructure can impact what must be reported.
For example, if you’re getting new servers for your SQL farm and you broker a deal that allows you to get new 6-core CPUs for the same cost as quad-core – that’s great right? Perhaps…but it will add 50% per processor onto your SQL licensing costs, if you’re offering SQL 2012 to your customers. In order to control costs, and to ensure compliance, Service Providers must be aware of the licensing implications of changes to their infrastructure as well as the services they offer.
The options for purchasing SPLA in the UK are much more limited than other forms of Microsoft licensing, with only 5 resellers in the country. In fact, most countries in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East & Africa) region have just 3 resellers to choose from. You can find resellers in your region here:
https://www.microsoft.com/hosting/en/us/licensing/splahowto.aspx
In the US & Canada, SPLA is also available via Ingram Micro as a sole distributor and there is talk that SPLA in the UK will be extended in a similar manner.
A recent news story that garnered a lot of attention in the hosting/SPLA/Licensing/VDI worlds was that of Onlive and their Desktop-As-A-Service (DAAS) offering. This service offered a Windows 7 desktop to every user via the iPad and other hardware, something which flew straight in the face of Microsoft’s licensing terms as explained by Joe Matz, Corporate VP of Worldwide Licensing & Pricing (WWLP):
“Customers that want to work with partners to have them host Windows 7 in a VDI solution on their behalf, can do so when the customer provides the partner licenses through the customer’s own agreements with Microsoft. The hosting hardware must be dedicated to, and for the benefit of the customer, and may not be shared by or with any other customers of that partner”
So to have a hosted Windows 7 VDI solution the client must use their own Volume Licensing agreement (such as Open, Select, Enterprise Agreement) to purchase the Windows VDA licences required for the solution.
The second part of the above paragraph “the hosting hardware must be dedicated to…the customer” takes away the whole business concept of hosting – multi tenancy. This is using virtualization technologies to run multiple virtual servers on a single physical server, and is how all hosted software offerings work…including Microsoft’s Office 365.
Forcing the hosting provider to buy a separate physical box for each of its customers makes it very hard to profitable without charging an exorbitant rate per user…thus making it near impossible to offer such a service.
“Microsoft partners who host under the Services Provider License Agreement (“SPLA”) may bring some desktop-like functionality as a service by using Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services. Under this solution, the partner is free to offer this service to any customer they choose, whether or not they have a direct licensing agreement with Microsoft. However, it is important to note that SPLA does not support delivery of Windows 7 as a hosted client or provide the ability to access Office as a service through Windows 7. Office may only be provided as a service if it is hosted on Windows Server and Remote Desktop Services”
After a lengthy silence, angry blog posts from Guise Bule (of OnLive rival TuCloud) threatening to launch a similar service and VDI supremo Brian Madden quitting their “Most Valuable Professional” programme, Microsoft announced that OnLive had changed their offering to provide the service via Windows Server & Remote Desktop Services.
If you’re looking to start a new hosted service and/or transfer an existing onsite offering to the Cloud, and you utilise any Microsoft products, SPLA licensing must be on your list.
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Products available as both “Per Processor” and “SAL”:
Products available via “Per Processor” model:
Products available via “Per Core” model: