Systems Center 2012, All change!!!

Yesterday Microsoft made a few announcements to Systems Center 2012 designed to streamline the SKUs and make licensing the products easier

Also, Forefront Endpoint Protection is being rebranded under the Systems Center Family to be Systems Center Endpoint Protection.

There are currently several different Systems Center products with varying licensing structures. Some require a Licence for the Management Server, some have these included when licensing the managed servers. Some come with SQL technology, some without. The managed Servers have Standard or Enterprise Management Licences (MLs), depending on their workload, some have only one. This is all changing…

Licensing the Servers

For Systems Center 2012 Edition, Microsoft are doing away with the need to Licence the Management Server for all the products. They are then consolidating the server MLs, Standard or Enterprise, for ALL the Systems Center products into 2 suite Licences: Systems Center Standard and Systems Center Datacenter Licences.

Both these editions:

• include all the Systems Center Components
• Can manage any workloads
• include rights to the Management Software
• include rights to SQL technology (for the running of Systems Center ONLY)
• Cover up to 2 Physical processors
• The same version must be deployed on a single server
• have has SA included

The difference between the 2 products comes from the Virtualisation and Licensing rights:

Each Standard Edition will licence 2 OSEs on-premise and up to 2 OSEs on a server farm (Public cloud). Datacenter Edition allows Unlimited OSEs when the physical server is correctly licenced and up to 8 OSEs in the public cloud.

So, Licensing these products. Both of these are processor based licensing. This means that one licence will cover 2 processors on the same machine (you cannot use one Licence across 2 one processor machines). If you are licensing the Systems Center Standard Edition and you have a virtual environment , you count the amount of physical processors and the amount OSEs, you need to licence the greater number (divided by 2, then rounded up as each licence covers 2 processors) to be properly licenced

Systems Center Standard Licensing

Since systems Center Datacenter Edtion allows unlimited OSEs on premise, you count the number of physical processors only and licence those, remembering each Systems Center Datacenter Licence covers 2 processors.

Client Management Licences

As Already discussed, EndPoint Protection will be rebranded into the Systems Center Family and will continue to be available separately. The other Clients MLs will be consolidated into 2 other Licences, so the new SKU line up for the client will look as follows:

A Special Mention to the CORE CAL who recently acquired Lync Standard CAL and EndPoint protection last August, this now contains VM Manager as well!!

Software Assurance will also now be included on all the client suites. They will still be available on a per user or per OSE basis and include the rights to run the SQL technology and the management software.

 *****UPDATE*****

The standalone Endpoint protection product will no longer cover the Servers. Should the customer wish to cover their servers with Endpoint protection, they will need to purchase the Systems Center 2012 Server Licences which includes Endpoint protection for the servers

So then, these are all the changes, how does this affect those customers covered by SA?

Software Assurance Migration

Customers with Active SA on their current agreements will receive rights to the New versions as follows:

Server MLs:

There will also be a Step-Up Licence from the SC Standard Edition to the SC Datacenter Edition, for the customer to upgrade to provided they keep their SA coverage up to date!

Client MLs:

The SQL technology is included as well (again, restricted for the Systems Center usage only) and the Management software is included as well.

It is important to note, that as of 1 February 2012, customer will NOT be able to purchase the L&SA SKUs for the current Systems Center products (SMSE and SMSD Licences will continue to be available). SA only SKUs on current products will continue to be available for renewing customers until GA of Systems Center 2012. The Standalone Licence only products will be available to purchase until January 2013.

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