Microsoft Moving to Per-Core Licencing for Server 2016

[CougTek]

Here's the story.

For systems with up to 4 processors and up to 8 cores per processor, this won't change the overall licensing cost. Above this, however, things get more expensive; although the price for a single processor 10 core system will remain the same, with two or or more sockets populated by 10 core processors, prices will go up; 2 or 4 processors with 10 cores per processor will cost 25 percent more to run Windows Server 2016 than they did 2012.

I'm quite pissed about this and so should you.

 

[LunarMist]

Haven't other vendors done something like that per CPU and core deal for years? It seems that with more cores there may be less OS sold, so they want to minimize losses.

 

[mubs]

Yup. AFAIR, Oracle did this years ago.

 

[CougTek]

I don't care much about what Oracle does. Not that many businesses have Oracle servers. Most businesses have Windows Server. The impact isn't comparable.

 

[Chewy509]

Is there any word if they intend to do the same with other server applications? eg Exchange, MSSQL, etc?

Otherwise unless a business is strictly tied to MS technologies, this may drive users to start seriously considering alternatives.

 

[ddrueding]

Oracle did it a long time ago. I'm sure MSSQL will be doing the same if they haven't already. As your product gets more capable (and therefore used in larger systems), you need a way to price descriminate and extract more from those customers who are getting more from your product. With modern CPUs, the most I can see throwing into a medium sized company is a 2-proc, 10-core system. 25% more is hardly highway robbery. Then again, I'll be running ESXi (also priced per socket and differentiated on cores) on the bare metal. It is unlikely any one of my Windows VMs will see more than 1-proc, 6-core.

 

[Mercutio]

I wonder what the pricing difference will be between Server 2016 and Azure instances.

 

[LunarMist]

I don't care much about what Oracle does. Not that many businesses have Oracle servers. Most businesses have Windows Server. The impact isn't comparable.

You mean that there are only a few large businesses that have many thousands of the Oracle servers?
I have no idea where all the Oracle servers are that we access at work, but I doubt that much if anything occurs in the building.
What are most businesses using for ERP systems nowadays if not Oracle or similar?

 

[Mercutio]

If they're smart, not-Oracle. The Oracle license model is "You tell us you want to use Oracle. We come back every few months with new reasons you should be giving us money."
Of course, just like using Windows as a desktop OS or Adobe for content creation, you go where the expertise is, and the expertise is mostly invested in making Oracle work.

 

[ddrueding]

If they're smart, not-Oracle. The Oracle license model is "You tell us you want to use Oracle. We come back every few months with new reasons you should be giving us money."
Of course, just like using Windows as a desktop OS or Adobe for content creation, you go where the expertise is, and the expertise is mostly invested in making Oracle work.

This. One of our software vendors was facing a huge backlash for using Oracle, and has eaten high costs converting their product back to MSSQL. For reference, I can buy the entire MSSQL package and the backup program for the cost of one year's maintenance for the Oracle install that does the same thing.

 

[CougTek]

Is there any word if they intend to do the same with other server applications? eg Exchange, MSSQL, etc?

I don't know about Exchange, but they did the very same thing for MS SQL last year. Then again, not all servers need MS SQL, but they all need an OS, no matter what's their purpose.

If only the entire market wasn't so tied up with Microsoft's products. Exchange, Project, Office, Visio, RDP servers, etc. The entire software ecosystem is typically Microsoft-only. Only some admin-level applications can be done with Linux. As soon as you think about your average user needs, you're stuck with Microsoft.

I would so much like to replace MS Office with LibreOffice, MS Project with Project Libre, Visio with LibreOffice's Draw, Outlook/Exchange by Thunderbird and something else that does what Exchange does. Same goes for an RDP server. Hélas, none of the alternatives are quite good enough to do business with partners that use MS products. So the $$$ goes out the window and fly up to Microsoft's fat vault.

 

[CougTek]

As for the CAL, what a ripoff! It's not enough to pay thousands of dollars for the server (be it the OS, Exchange of SQL), you have to bleed for every user connecting to the server. F*cking corporate crooks, that's what they are.

 

[Howell]

The max recommended cores per server for exchange is fewer than that. This shouldn't affect exchange implementations. This looks more targeted at hyper v

 

[DrunkenBastard]

Is there any word if they intend to do the same with other server applications? eg Exchange, MSSQL, etc?

Otherwise unless a business is strictly tied to MS technologies, this may drive users to start seriously considering alternatives.

MS SQL has already gone to per core licensing (you buy "2 core" packs up to what the server core count is). Definitely can get more expensive if you have a lot of cores.

This seems to be a way to extract more cash from those running things like multiple 14 core Xeons etc.