Microsoft eases datacentre software virtualisation rules

Stephen Withers
Wednesday, 20 August 2008 08:33

Business IT - Technology

Microsoft has relaxed its licensing restrictions on datacentre software to allow for the growing use of virtualisation. Significantly, Microsoft has chosen to drop its previous 90-day reassignment rule, allowing server software to be moved around a server farm as often as necessary. The change is especially significant for customers running virtualised environments.

One of the advantages of virtualisation is that virtual machines can be migrated to different physical servers as needed to meet peaks in demand or to minimise the amount of hardware that's powered up at a given time.

The problem is that most software licences were written before this became a mainstream practice, and the idea of frequently moving software between systems was seen by vendors as a trick to reduce the number of licences purchased.

"Businesses are taking steps to make their IT operations more dynamic and are delving into virtualization as a cornerstone strategy," said Zane Adam, senior director of integrated virtualization in Microsoft's server and tools business.

"Microsoft recognizes this and is innovating its licensing policies, product support and a wide range of IT solutions to help customers get virtual now."

The altered licence terms apply to 41 server products, including SQL Server, Exchange, Dynamics CRM, and SharePoint Server.

Tech support rules have also changed, and Microsoft's inviting you to a jamboree to learn more about its version of virtualisation - find out more on page two.