SharePoint Resource

The latest insights from the SharePoint Experts

The Fundamentals of Microsoft Licensing

Posted by tomshaw94 on January 6, 2012

To begin this blog I’ll explain to you exactly what a Microsoft License actually is. The software you are wishing to use is the intellectual property of Microsoft, and therefore the license you buy provides you with the right to use the software and also defines the conditions of use.

When buying your license there are many ways to purchase it. You could buy a Full Packaged Product (FPP). With FPP you purchase your license from a retailer, and it is typically one license to one box. This is usually the most expensive way of buying licenses, however it is the easiest. Another way of buying is Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) licenses. This type of license is preinstalled on a new computer; therefore the software lives and dies on that machine. This way of buying software is also, however, typically the cheapest way to buy licensing.  In addition to this another form of buying licensing is through Online Services. Online Services is where the technology is hosted on Microsoft’s, or a hosting partner’s, servers. The final way to buy your licenses would be through Volume Licensing. Through this way licenses are purchased through the reseller channel. There are also different programs to suit all kinds of organisations needing more than 5 licenses, I will cover this next.

Microsoft Licensing Programs

When finding the right licensing program for an organisation the following factors need to be considered: the size of the organisation, whether they want to buy or subscribe and rent the licenses,  whether they want Software Assurance or not and also whether they want to standardise the software on all PC’s in the organisation or not.

Open Licensing

  • 5-250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance Optional
  • Perpetual Licensing with up-front payment
  • 2 year agreement term
  • Online Services not offered

Open Value

  • 5-250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance is included
  • Perpetual Licensing with up-front payment or annual payment
  • 3 year agreement term
  • Online Services offered
  • Can be companywide standardised or not

Open Value Subscription

  • 5-250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance included
  • Non-perpetual with subscription payment every year on a rolling contract
  • Three year term, which is renewable
  • Online Services offered
  • Must be standardised

The above programs can be sold by any Microsoft reseller

Select (This program has been discontinued from 1/7/2011. However you still may encounter them so it is useful to know about them)

  • +250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance optional
  • 3 year agreement term
  • Perpetual Licensing with up-front payment or annual payment
  • Online Services offered

Select Plus

  • +250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance optional
  • No agreement expiration
  • Perpetual Licensing with up-front payment or annual payment
  • Online Services offered

Enterprise Agreement

  • +250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance included
  • Must be standardised
  • Perpetual License

Enterprise Subscription Agreement

  • +250 PC’s
  • Software Assurance included
  • Must be standardised
  • Non-Perpetual  License

Perpetual and Non-Perpetual Licenses

A Perpetual License allows you to own their software throughout the term of the licensing agreement and forever afterwards the ended term. Whereas a Non-Perpetual License is like a rental agreement, you subscribe to use the software throughout the term of the agreement.

Server Licenses and CALs

Purchase Server licenses for every server, and then also Client Access Licenses (CALs) for either users or devices:

  • A Device CAL is assigned to a device and allows multiple users to use the device.
  • A User CAL is assigned to a specific user and allows the user to use multiple devices with that CAL.

Standard and Enterprise CALs

Some server products offer different levels of functionality that can be accessed by users through different CALs. The core functionality offered by the server is linked to a Standard CAL. To gain the extra functionality of the product you must then purchase an Enterprise CAL on top of the Standard CAL.

Standard and Enterprise CALs can also be used to license External Users. This applies to products such as SharePoint Server 2010 and Exchange Server 2010.

CAL Suites

For many organisations buying their CALs in suites can be very beneficial. It is the most cost effective way to buy a set of CAL’s for an organisation. They combine the most popular CALs in two packages, Core CAL Suite and Enterprise CAL Suite. They contain the following CALs:

Core CAL Suite

  • Windows Server Standard
  • Exchange Server Standard
  • SharePoint Server Standard
  • System Centre Configuration Manager
  • Lync Server Standard
  • Forefront Endpoint Protection

Enterprise CAL Suite (Everything Above Plus)

  • Active Directory Rights Management Services
  • Exchange Server Enterprise
  • SharePoint Server Enterprise
  • Lync Server Enterprise
  • System Centre Client Management Suite
  • Forefront Protection Suite
  • Forefront Unified Access Gateway

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Blog URL Changing

Posted by Gary Powell-Jones on January 3, 2012

The url for the Novotronix blog will be changing from http://sharepointresource.com to http://sharepoint-comments.com
Please update any permalinks that you may have

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Enrolment for Education Solutions (EES) Licensing

Posted by tomshaw94 on December 16, 2011

The Enrolment for Education Solutions License, or EES, became available to schools within the UK from the 1st of March 2011. This agreement can license a single school, a number of schools or an entire local education authority. The agreement is a contract type enrolment via an open value subscription. The subscription is a flexible volume licensing offer lasting for 3 years. After the 3 years there are a number of options to consider. Your first option is to extend your subscription under a one year licensing period. A second option to consider is submitting a new subscription enrolment under the three-year licensed period. A further option is that you allow the subscription to run out and then stop using the software. If you wish to buy your software you can convert to a perpetual license which is done through buy-out licenses. It should be noted that the costs of this can be significant and should be considered as part of the decision to choose this type of licensing.

To qualify for this license you must have a minimum of 5 FTE’s or more. FTE’s are staff that work more than 200 hours per year in school. The FTE’s get counted once every year which means that you don’t have to track every computer in the organisation.

Key Benefits:

  • Counting FTE staff once a year covers all staff and shared PCs
  • One annual payment at academic prices.
  • Access to the most up to date version of the licensed software
  • Access to software assurance benefits.
  • Working at home for staff users counted within the FTE count.
  • Licensed to run any version of the product includes product upgrades during the designated agreement.
  • Broad product selection available

There is a wide selection of Microsoft products available through the EES type of License.

The Education Desktop Platform package includes:

  • Windows 7 Enterprise upgrade.
  • Microsoft Office Pro Plus 2010
  • Microsoft Core CAL Suite

The Enterprise Desktop Platform package includes all of the above plus an Enterprise CAL Suite.

There are also a number of additional products and services available through your EES License.  These additional products and services can be licensed in any quantity, ranging from a single license to organisation wide.  Examples of Additional products available include Windows Server, Exchange Server, Microsoft Office Visio, Microsoft Project and additional CALs or Microsoft Online Services.

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The benefits of using Microsoft Office 365

Posted by tomshaw94 on November 22, 2011

Microsoft Office 365 is a revolutionary technology that allows individuals and companies to create and maintain a virtual office in the cloud. It offers businesses and professionals with an easy and flexible way to work on the go from a PC, through a browser and a smartphone. Features include the familiar Microsoft Office 2010 applications and their web applications; Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Lync Online.

Office 365 offers the following benefits:

One of the biggest benefits of using Office 365 is that it enables you to work from virtually anywhere and on nearly any device- be it PC, Mac, iPhone, Android or Blackberry. This benefits you as information can be accessed anywhere at any time, and still have a high security level.  Emails can be accessed anywhere through the Outlook Web App, documents can be viewed and edited with Office Web App and online meetings can take place with the Lync Web App.

Your mail, documents and services are always available whenever you need them. Your data is delivered and kept in a data centre protected by layers of security. Office 365 also includes a ‘financially-backed Service Level Agreement’ to guarantee 99.9% uptime.

Office 365 provides your business with a fixed annual cost for using communication, collaboration, and productivity tools. Also it can significantly reduce costs and effort for deploying and managing servers on-premise.

Your information is always protected by the highest standard of security. Microsoft Exchange Online has built in anti-virus and spam filtering protection. In addition to this you can safeguard your data with enterprise-grade reliability, continuous data back-up, disaster recovery capabilities and strict privacy policies.

Through the Office 365 management site you can keep control of your IT. Tasks and authority can be delegated through Role-Based Access Controls. Patches, updates and back-end upgrades are automatically applied, while you retain control over the deployment of major changes.

Using Office 365 can be an easy transition for you. This is because you can become productive right away using familiar Office tools that integrate with Office 365. Furthermore Office 365 doesn’t require a complicated setup and configuration, which again speeds up the time in which you can become productive.

With a variety of contracts available it is easy to find one that fits your business and IT needs well. Each contract has the same 99.9% uptime guarantee and a high security level that you expect from Microsoft.Your employees can simultaneously edit documents with colleagues. In addition to this, Office 365 provides an easy platform for emails, collaboration and online meeting solutions.

Office 365 makes it possible to have mailboxes in the cloud and on premise, and allows them to work effectively as a single, integrated architecture. Features in Office 365 are available to both cloud users and on-premise users. This shows again how seamless the collaboration is between cloud and on-premise users.

Microsoft provides a global IT support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This benefits to your company as it reduces down time. Your problems can be sorted at any time and as quickly as possible.

For a free 30 day trail of the full enterprise version of Office 365 (including SharePoint, Lync and Exchange) click here

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Novotronix SharePoint Support & Mentoring Package

Posted by tomshaw94 on November 17, 2011

Novotronix provide a SharePoint Support & Mentoring Package to a number of our clients. For many of our clients their SharePoint environment is an essential part of their organisation. Therefore, when a problem arises within their SharePoint system our clients require a quick and effective solution to the problem. Clients also take out this package to help grow and improve their SharePoint system through our mentoring service. This service enables the client to call upon us and then we can mentor them through the development of their system.

The benefits to an organisation who take out a Support & Mentoring Package with us are:

  • We will provide you with a free initial health check for your SharePoint platform. This will report on any existing issues in the SharePoint environment. This benefits your company as we can identify any issues and then deal with them accordingly, ensuring your SharePoint environment is running efficiently.
  • With the support contract we will perform a platform health check every 6 months. This includes tasks such as checking the platform is running as it should be, and also checking the logs to make sure nothing has gone wrong. The benefit of this is so that the platform improves performance and also reduces unexpected down time for end users.
  • Taking out a support contract with us can also benefit your existing IT staff. Our specialised resources and experienced staff will compliment your existing IT team and provide a mentoring a training service.
  • You also gain access to the skills and services of our highly trained specialists who can ensure your support incidents will be handled quickly and effectively, meaning your platform can be restored to full working capability as quickly as possible, minimizing disruption for end users.
  • Our support service is not only there for when something goes wrong. It is also there to help with your SharePoint progression. This benefits you because as the SharePoint platform grows it can improve business performance and efficiency.

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