Comments on: Tech Note: SPLA Licensing Limitations + Holiday Wish

By: R. Stacy

R. Stacy — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 12:32:44 +0000

Alfred:

Not much, however, there have been some creative solutions to offering services that leverage the SPLA program. The bottom line is simple, though, when you boil it all down.

1. The provider must own the hardware, regardless of where the hardware is kept.
2. Delivering a desktop OS in a virtualized environment is permitted if:
a. The customer own’s the license.
b. The hardware on which the VM is delivered must be dedicated to that customer.

NOTE: The licensing can be administered by the Microsoft partner, however, the license must be owned by the customer.

So leveraging economies of scale gets a bit troublesome if you’re a large provider.

By: Alfred van Benthem

Alfred van Benthem — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 21:19:44 +0000

The last reply was in March.
Is there any progression?

By: SPLA Limitations Redux « Stacy's Tech Blog

SPLA Limitations Redux « Stacy's Tech Blog — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 17:02:21 +0000

[...] Stacy's Tech Blog « Cloud Revisited SPLA Limitations Redux March 27, 2010 About 3 months ago, I wrote a post on the limitations on the SPLA program. You can read that post HERE. [...]

By: Matthias Fischaleck

Matthias Fischaleck — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 12:01:37 +0000

You know this is really getting frustrating. The days ticking away mean more and more lost momentum that goes totally wasted because of a few heads not getting the terms together.
I’m not saying that i want to cheat Microsoft by squeezing each last possible VM out of a single license, I’d be happy to pay the fee for each last one of them as required… IF I’m finally able to sell the product lineup in a consistent manner. The seams of Citrix and Microsoft SPLA programs just don’t fit together whereas that’s really somthing you might expect from the official “V-Alliance”.
Where is the point in going all-in on virtualisation, setting up SPLA-programs to allow software on demand and then denying the use of that licensing model in the exact spot where it makes the most sense?

I keep searching the net for news and revelations about this messy problem, please sb tell me there’s movement somewhere.

By: Eric K.

Eric K. — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:13:48 +0000

We are in a similar situation. We have long term managed clients wanting us to completely take over their infrastructure & desktops. VECD limitation is making the solution expensive. Looking forward to an update on the topic soon.

By: R. Stacy

R. Stacy — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 21:08:44 +0000

Unfortunately, no, however I met with someone at Citrix last week who assures me they are also working on this. Hopefully, Microsoft will allow their Service Providers to provide Desktop-as-a-Service via the SPLA soon. Otherwise, the customer must maintain a VL agreement in addition to the agreement with the provider.

-rss

By: Matthias Fischaleck

Matthias Fischaleck — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 19:56:55 +0000

Facing the exact same problem I’m more than interrested to find out if you made any progress in this case. There are rumors about sth changing in january.. heard nothing so far

By: R. Stacy

R. Stacy — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 13:06:03 +0000

Steve,

Thanks, I agree. I received a call from Microsoft SPLA the day after this post. After some time on the phone, they asked me to write a business case for the inclusion of desktop operating systems in the SPLA program, which I’ve been composing this week.

I’ll post the letter and additional thoughts on this soon!

-ss

By: Steve Chambers

Steve Chambers — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 12:57:38 +0000

Microsoft have long been the bane of virtualization and this is yet another example.

Good luck with your attempts to change the behometh’s direction!