Virtual Machines Licensing FAQ

Windows Server licenses are not eligible for License Mobility through Software Assurance. The license to run Windows Server in the Windows Azure environment is included in the hourly cost of your Windows Virtual Machine. Licenses for use of Windows Server on-premises (whether in a VHD or otherwise) must be obtained separately through volume licensing.

Even though Windows Server is not covered under license mobility, Volume Licensing customers can still upload their own image containing Windows Server to Windows Azure, if they are bringing it as part of Licensing Mobility for another product that is being brought over. We will charge the Windows Server Virtual Machine rate applicable for their instance. Customers are responsible for proper licensing of any application or middleware in the image.

No. Windows Server CALs are not required for accessing Windows Server running in the Windows Azure environment because the access rights are included in the per hour charge for the Virtual Machines. Use of Windows Server on-premises (whether in a VHD or otherwise) requires obtaining a separate license and is subject to the normal licensing requirements for use of software on-premises.

Customers can use the license mobility benefits under Software Assurance to assign their System Center 2012 license to a Windows Server instance running on Windows Azure. A System Center Standard license can be used to manage 2 VM instances; a System Center Datacenter license can be used to manage 8 VM instances. For an overview of the pricing and licensing of System Center 2012 on Windows Azure, click here.

There are two ways to license SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines:

1. Install or upload your own SQL Server image using the license mobility benefits under Software Assurance
2. Obtain the SQL Server image from our image gallery and pay the per-hour rate of SQL Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

SQL Server 2012 is licensed per core, which is considered the equivalent to virtual cores in Windows Azure virtual machine instances. The minimum number of cores that can be assigned to a virtual machine instance is 4. This means that Extra Small (A0), Small (A1), Medium (A2), Large (A3), and A6 instances must all be assigned 4 SQL Server core licenses. Extra Large (A4), and A7 instances would need to be assigned 8 SQL Server core licenses.

There are two ways to license BizTalk Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines:

1. Install or upload your own BizTalk Server image using the license mobility benefits under Software Assurance
2. Obtain the BizTalk Server image from our image gallery and pay the per-hour rate of BizTalk Server in Windows Azure Virtual Machines

Windows Azure currently does not have the ability to offer SBH (Session-Based Hosting) through RDS or any other third party offering. Customers may remote into their servers for administrative purposes for up to 2 administrators without additional licensing.

No, Remote Desktop Services CALs purchased through Volume Licensing programs are not eligible for the License Mobility rights under Software Assurance.

No, while ISVs can sell RDS CALs as part of the ISVR program, those RDS CALs can only be used to access the ISV application on-premises. If the ISV application is being hosted on Windows Azure, the application cannot be accessed using RDS in Windows Azure.

No, multi-tenant hosting is restricted in the Product Use Rights of Windows Client. So Windows Client Desktops are not available on either Windows Azure or on any other Service Provider such as Amazon or Rackspace. You can read more about the Microsoft Product Use Rights here: http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/product-licensing.aspx

SharePoint Servers can be deployed to Windows Azure either through a customer’s volume license agreement using License Mobility for Software Assurance, or as part of a hosted solution licensed via SPLA.

In addition to Windows Server, SQL Server, BizTalk Server, we support Project Server, Dynamics NAV, Dynamics GP and Team Foundation Server. Please find the latest list of supported workloads in this article. Table below summarizes licensing models for each product:

Products	Available in the image gallery and charged per hour	License Mobility though Software Assurance	SPLA SAL License
Windows Server Datacenter Edition	(hourly charge includes use of hardware resource, server license and client access rights)
Windows Server Standard Edition
SQL Server Enterprise Edition
SQL Server Standard Edition
SQL Server Web Edition
BizTalk Server Enterprise Edition
BizTalk Server Standard Edition
SharePoint Server
System Center Datacenter
System Center Standard
Team Foundation Server
Project Server
Microsoft Dynamics NAV
Microsoft Dynamics GP

No. Under the Microsoft Product use Rights (PUR), Office and Windows 7 are not licensed to run on Virtual Machines. In particular, Microsoft Office is classified in the PUR as “Desktop Applications”, which is not included in Licensing Mobility.

More information is available at the site for Microsoft Product Use Rights.

Yes, Starting June 1, 2013, any current MSDN subscriber who has activated their subscription may run most of the software licensed under MSDN on Windows Azure Virtual Machines, providing greater flexibility for developing and testing their applications.

This cloud use right applies to all software included in the MSDN subscription except Windows client and Windows Server. Windows client (Windows 7, Windows 8, etc.) is only licensed to run on local devices. MSDN subscribers can run Windows Server on Windows Azure Virtual Machines, but since this is not included as part of the cloud use rights, subscribers will be charged at the rate of Windows Server Virtual Machines. This cloud use right be available through Qualified MSDN Cloud Partners as well. More details on this new program will be made available soon. Please consult the Visual Studio and MSDN licensing white paper for additional details on cloud use rights.

In addition to this new use right for MSDN subscribers, we updated the Windows Azure MSDN benefit to provide MSDN subscribers a monthly credit to use toward Windows Azure services and reduced rates for running Windows Server Virtual Machines.