Overview of the Changes to the April 2014 Volume Licensing Product Use Rights

Unsurprisingly, it’s SQL Server that grabs the headlines in the April 2014 PUR, so let’s start with a summary of what’s updated for this product:

  • The 2012 Standard, BI and Enterprise editions are all updated to their 2014 equivalents and there are just two changes to the licensing – see the next two bullet points
    • Licensing a passive fail-over server is now an SA benefit. The details are on page 72 and confirm that if you’re licensed with the Server/CAL model you do need SA on your CALs too, and if you’ve moved your licences to a third party shared server under Licence Mobility rights then you don’t get these fail-over server rights
    • There’s a new CAL waiver for batch jobs for the BI edition on page 27, and just for completeness you should note that these rights also apply to the BI 2012 version of the product – see page 27 of the May 2014 Product List
  • There’s a useful new section added for SQL Server 2014 Enterprise edition when it’s licensed with the Server/CAL model. It confirms the following key facts all in one place on page 37:
    • This edition is only available under SA renewal
    • It may only access 20 physical cores
    • Each licence permits the running of SQL in 4 VOSES and licences may be stacked to allow SQL to run in additional VOSES
    • Down-edition rights are to BI, Standard, Workgroup or Small Business editions, and the 20 core limitation is removed when BI is installed
    • Licence Mobility is available with active SA
    • The Power BI for Office 365 USL can’t be used as an alternative to a SQL CAL to access the server

There are a couple of changes to the Windows family, where the licensing rules for Windows client and his first cousin Windows Embedded get ever closer:

  • Firstly, page 10 confirms that if you’ve got active SA on your Windows 8.1 Enterprise/Industry Enterprise licences then you can move both the licence AND the SA to a replacement device
  • The SA benefits for both flavours of Windows are now much more similar and so the sections have been combined in the Software Assurance Appendix on page 73. Notably, Windows Industry Enterprise SA gains VDA rights

There are a couple of other updates:

  • AX 2012 R2 is updated for R3 with the only significant change being that, like SQL 2014, its fail-over server rights move to being an SA benefit – see page 67
  • BizTalk 2013 is updated for R2 so it looks like we can expect to see that product in June then 😉

There’s some clarification added to the Disaster Recovery Rights SA benefit – formerly known as Cold Backup Server Rights:

  • There’s confirmation added on page 68 that a Windows Server licence is not required for the Disaster Recovery server as long as certain (listed) conditions are met
  • And a statement is added on page 69 stipulating that the Disaster Recovery server may not be used as a production server

And finally we say a few goodbyes:

  • Lync Online Plan 3 is at last removed
  • System Center Advisor is also removed as this is no longer an SA benefit, but became a free service way back in January 2013
  • And Data Protection Manager 2010 for System Center Essentials also slips quietly away