Replacing SPLA with CSP and licensing Windows Server

[lawtonma]

We would like to use CSP Software Subscriptions to license our hosted Windows Servers/SQL etc as it makes much more sense to transact through a single licensing model.

A couple of questions;

- are there any licensing restrictions to be aware of that may catch us out when we have shared services to multiple customers?

- There is currently no "Datacenter Edition" available via CSP, only Windows Server Standard - is this likely to change in the near future?

Any help would be greatfully received!

Mark

[JanoschUlmer · Accepted solution]

CSP Software subscriptions can be licensed by the end customer to be used on their own dedicated servers or in Azure, as a CSP Partner you can sell them to customers, but you can not deploy them on shared hardware you use for providing hosted services for end customers. So if "our hosted Windows/SQL" means servers you host for end customers, then the answer is no.

A customer can only use those licenses on servers (hardware) dedicated to him in a Partner-hosted datacenter if the hosting Partner is an eligible "authorized outsourcer" - as defined in the Product Terms (In a nutshell: Authorized Outsourcer is everybody not listed as a provider here) . So if "our hosted Windows/SQL" means you are running your own VMs in a datacenter of another (SPLA) Partner, then the answer may be yes.

I have heard of no plans to make Datacenter edition available as CSP software subscription.

[lawtonma]

Thanks Janosh

So the answer is no but maybe yes, depending on how they are deployed........I was hoping CSP would make life easier from a licensing perspective!

[JanoschUlmer]

Yes, every new option introduces more complexity in understanding and differentiating the use case for those options 🙂

I like the idea of CSP replacing SPLA channel long term, but this will still take years I guess. However, you could start by giving feedback here: https://microsoftbusinessoperations.uservoice.com/forums/921631-partner-idea-box?category_id=362221