License Compliance Software/tools
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Yes, in a real audit they can call you on anything that they find.
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@scottalanmiller who would be best to ask about split licensing on RDP?
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@technobabble said:
@scottalanmiller who would be best to ask about split licensing on RDP?
I've pinged some people. Hopefully someone will pop in.
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Thanks!
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OK, MS Office licensing for RDP, in a nutshell:
Any device accessing an RDP server with Office installed must have a license for the same edition and version of Office on it. If you have Office Standard on the server, Home and Business on the workstations won't count. If you Have ProPlus on the server, you'd need the same on the client computers. Even if you don't install Office on the client computers, they must be covered by a license.Generally speaking, this needs to happen through volume licensing. The one exception is with Office 365 and ProPlus on the server. If the end-user is covered by a ProPlus subscription, they're eligible to access an RDP server with ProPlus installed.
This goes for Remote Desktop Services (RDS), Terminal services, and similar third-party setups, such as Citrix XenApp.
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@alexntg I am not the OP, but I am happy to hear this as this is how I understood it and how I set it up at one client that uses RDS/RWW Published apps.
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So, if we provide outside contractors with Office on our RDP server, we have to provide them with software that is on their PC or a license delegated to their PC? I presume the same goes for virtual PC's or Thin Clients?
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Using ProPlus as an example, if you have 30 computers with ProPlus installed, 30 without, and 30 thin clients, you'd need 60 licenses in addition to the existing 30 installed on the first group of machines. Even though the device doesn't have Office installed on it, it needs to be covered by a license.
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@technobabble said:
So, if we provide outside contractors with Office on our RDP server, we have to provide them with software that is on their PC or a license delegated to their PC? I presume the same goes for virtual PC's or Thin Clients?
Correct
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With virtual PCs, make sure that you're also covering yourself for Windows with those virtual OSEs.
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So they don't have to have the software installed, I just have to license the product to their device. Does that mean I have to change my RDS to devices instead of users? Also how do I prevent other users from accessing the software?
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The licenses are not tied to RDS licenses. No need to change anything there.
And yes, it is just a license, not an install for the device doing the accessing.
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@technobabble said:
Also how do I prevent other users from accessing the software?
You can set permissions on the folders so only certain users can open them, but that doesn't change the licensing.. if the aforementioned thin clients, etc access the server, even if the user does not have rights to launch the program, they still require a license.
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Perfect! Thanks to all that participated, I really appreciate it!
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@technobabble Office 2010 can quite happily be installed on a server for RDS/Terminal Server access. Done it loads of times.
Licensing is as previously mentioned. If you have 60 people with access to the server, that's 60 licenses.
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After rereading everyones post, I understand that an Office license is needed per user of server. Paying for the 20 users is cool, paying for the other 40 because they have to login to the same server to use a different product seems crazy.
If that's the way the licensing works, I would have to build another RDP server just for Office so those 20 users can use office. Any reason that won't work?
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@technobabble said:
After rereading everyones post, I understand that an Office license is needed per user of server. Paying for the 20 users is cool, paying for the other 40 because they have to login to the same server to use a different product seems crazy.
If that's the way the licensing works, I would have to build another RDP server just for Office so those 20 users can use office. Any reason that won't work?
Yes, I think that that might be how you handle it.
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@technobabble said:
After rereading everyones post, I understand that an Office license is needed per user of server. Paying for the 20 users is cool, paying for the other 40 because they have to login to the same server to use a different product seems crazy.
If that's the way the licensing works, I would have to build another RDP server just for Office so those 20 users can use office. Any reason that won't work?
That would do the trick. make sure to lock RDS permissions down on the original server once complete.
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What we see companies do, simply from an ease of management and licensing, is to put users on a ProPlus subscription or E3 from Office 365. That way, everyone's covered regardless of what they do. It may not be the least hard cost method, but there's no concern over compliance anymore.
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ProPlus looks quite affordable especially since they are using Word/Excel and don't need email.(Yes they have tried Open Office and had formatting and other Excel issues)
