During today’s (January 17, 2012) Microsoft Private Cloud event, “Transforming IT with Microsoft Private Cloud”, Microsoft went “all-in” with System Center and the Cloud by announcing exciting changes in how System Center is licensed.  NOTE: The new licensing scheme goes live on February 1, 2012.

Just Two Versions!

Microsoft announced two (only two!) different System Center Suite 2012 licensing models: 

• System Center 2012 Standard 
• System Center 2012 Datacenter

The only difference between the two (besides pricing) is the virtualization component.  Both licensing packs include each and every System Center Suite application.  So, in essence, there is now a single product, but two versions.

Included in the entire 2012 Suite:

• Configuration Manager
• Service Manager
• Virtual Machine Manager
• Operations Manager
• Data Protection Manager
• Orchestrator
• App Controller
• Endpoint Protection

NOTE: Both options require ownership of Software Assurance.

Standard vs. Datacenter

Microsoft considers the Standard version for those who are “lightly” virtualized, i.e., those that do not need an excessive number of VMs running in the organization.  The license for Standard includes 2 processors and 2 VMs (or two OS instances).  You can stack licenses if you need to add additional processors or additional VMs in your environment, but there is a breakpoint where it makes more sense, financially, to opt for the Datacenter package.  That breakpoint will generally be around 5 VMs.  Pricing is $1,323 for System Center 2012 Standard.

Microsoft considers the Datacenter version for those organizations who are highly virtualized.  System Center 2012 Datacenter licenses include an unlimited number of Operating System Environments (OSEs) in an on premises environment or eight OSEs in a public cloud environment.  Large Enterprises and Cloud providers will benefit most from this model.  Pricing is $3,615 for System Center 2012 Datacenter.

NOTE: Managed devices (or endpoints) still require management licenses and are in the $22 to $121 per device range, and price structure depends on type and usage. For detailed information, contact your TAM or License associate.

Here’s a visual view to help get a better understanding:

License Transition

You’re probably already stuffed with questions.  There’s still a couple items that need to be explained a bit further. One of those is for those currently licensing System Center based on the old Suite model.  What about my current license?  How do I get access to the new licensing plan?

The following graphic helps explain it visually:

Based on the graphic, there are currently four different licensing schemes, Datacenter, Enterprise, Single Enterprise, and Single Standard.  What Microsoft is proposing for the license transition is huge.  No matter what licensing model you use today, when you transition to either the new Standard or Datacenter, Microsoft will be “giving” you additional cost value.  You get the full System Center Suite, adding additional products to your license, and they also transition the license in a way that gives your even more for you license.

One example from the graphic is that if you are currently licensing the Server Management Suite Enterprise with 1 processor, when you move to System Center 2012 Standard you automatically get the 2 processor license, effectively doubling the value of your license.

Configuration Manager and Endpoint Protection

Another piece of this that may interest you, is the inclusion of Endpoint Protection in the Configuration Manager 2012 core CAL.  Announced at MMS 2011, Forefront Endpoint Protection was included in the core CAL for Configuration Manager 2007.  This has turned out to be huge, as ConfigMgr organizations have migrated away from other AV solutions to Forefront.  This is not going away.  Endpoint Protection (as it is now called) is still included in the core CAL for Configuration Manager 2012.

Configuration Manager Standalone

Since the majority of information about System Center Suite 2012 concerned the datacenter (or Microsoft Private Cloud) there were a lot of ConfigMgr folks saying – “hey, you left us out!”  Do we HAVE to purchase the entire suite?  Why can’t we purchase ConfigMgr 2012 as a standalone product?

Yes, this was definitely glossed over. 

The answer:  You can still buy Configuration Manager 2012 standalone (through Core CAL / eCAL) without a price change!

Questions, Clarifications?

We spent some time, recently, in briefings about all of this and have tons of notes and direct communication with the team responsible for the licensing.  If there’s something you still have questions about, feel free to post comments here and we’ll get the answers for you.

Grab the fresh released of the System Center 2012 Licensing Datasheet.

Also…Microsoft has updated their System Center 2012 Volume Licensing pages to reflect the changes:

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/SystemCenter2012.aspx

This post was written by

Rod Trent – who has written 454 posts on myITforum.com.

Rod Trent, CEO of myITforum.com, Inc. and Microsoft MVP for Systems Center and Security is a leading expert on Microsoft System Center technologies. He has over 20 years of IT experience, 12 of which have been dedicated to System Center. He is the author of such books as Microsoft SMS Installer, Admin911:SMS, and IIS 5.0: A Beginner's Guide, and has written literally thousands of articles and whitepapers on technology topics. myITforum.com, Inc. is the central location for 3rd party System Center support, as well as, the online gathering place for IT professionals and the IT community. Rod speaks at least 3 times a year at various conferences.

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