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Microsoft did something good today. Today's press release announcing the new and updated licensing schemes for server products running in virtualized environments brings them right back into touch with their customers and with their own Hyper-V virtualization technology they frankly had no choice.

The new licensing scheme basically allows migrations between physical hosts, without having to license each of the hosts as well. In an enterprise setting this is how it has to be, and I sincerely doubt that anyone has really handled this differently before, regardless of the licensing limitation that has been in place until now.

The press release also mentions that extended support for their server products running in virtualized environments, as long as the virtualization vendors validate their products through the Server Virtualization Validation Program

Well done Microsoft. even though it's about time you got it right.

Mark Wilson has posted an outline of the current Microsoft licensing stance when it comes to virtualization. Thankfully it just reaffirms what I've thought to be the case all along, but it's great to get it confirmed like this.

Check out markwilson.it and particularly the post called A clear virtualisation licensing and support statement from Microsoft

Basically it is just a better presentation of my own analysis of the licensing terms back in December 2006.

Microsoft sent Mary Jo Foley, of ZDnet an email with an official reponse regarding the VMware whitepaper.

Addendum: On February 27, Microsoft supplied an official response to the VMware white paper, attributable to Neil. Here it is in full: “Microsoft believes the claims made in VMware’s whitepaper contain several inaccuracies and misunderstandings of our current license and use policies, our support policy and our commitment to technology collaboration. We believe that we are being progressive and fair with our existing licensing and use policies and creating a level playing field for partners and customers. We are deeply committed to providing high-quality technical support to our customers who are utilizing virtualization technology. In addition, we are committed to working collaboratively with industry leaders to foster an environment of interoperability and cooperation that best serves our customers. “We believe it's better to resolve VMware’s claims between our two companies so that we can better serve customers and the industry. EMC is a long-time partner of Microsoft. We've extended this courtesy to VMware due to our mutual customers and partnership with EMC. We are committed to continuing to collaborate with VMware as we have been doing on regular basis. Consistent with this, Microsoft believes that we will be able to accommodate a mutually agreeable solution between our two companies and clear up any existing misunderstanding with regard to the points raised in the whitepaper.”
source: http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=283

While this seems to indicate that Microsoft will be looking to resolve the issues raised by VMware, I still see this email as nothing more than an attempt to further muddy the water as it really doesn't address anything at all. Microsoft also seems to ignore the fact that there are more virtualization vendors out there, besides themselves and VMware. The licensing restrictions put in place by Microsoft doesn't just affect VMware customers, and Microsoft should really try to tackle this in a much more generic way.

In a recent VMware press release/whitepaper Microsoft has been accused of "playing dirty" and using unfair tactics in the virtualization market. VMware provides a list of areas where they believe that Microsoft imposes limits on their customers flexibility and tries to utilize their market share to force customers to not use other virtualization vendors technology and products.

VMware presents a very good case in that document, and there are a few key points that I really do find interesting:

3. De-Activation of Microsoft Virtual Machines on Third-Party Virtualization Software Some Microsoft VHDs are now configured to de-activate themselves if they are run on any virtualization product besides Microsoft Virtual PC or Virtual Server (for example, this Internet Explorer / Windows XP trial VM).

4. Prohibition of Translation or Manipulation of Microsoft VMs into Other Formats Another restriction is that Microsoft’s VHD End User License Agreements forbid the conversion of the Microsoft VMs into any virtual machine format other than the VHD format. Microsoft is strictly enforcing their VHD format on users and ISVs as a closed ecosystem and not allowing compatibility or translation with other formats (for example, this Windows Server VM).

This is something I have experienced directly. Some time ago Microsoft approached the Gallery project, asking us why we were not actively supporting MS SQL Server as a RDBMS option. Our reply was simple; We don't have the licenses needed for our developers to be able to develop for that platform, and the Gallery project is not in a position where we want to spend a lot of money on licenses for developers.

In the end we settled on using the Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Enterprise Edition VHD for our development purposes. That enabled us to get quite some testing and bugfixing done, so it has definitely helped the Gallery project, but the VHD is limited to a 30 day trial, which effectively means that we need to rebuild it every 30 days. The second problem with using it, is that you have to run it inside Microsofts Virtual Server software. Converting the VHD renders it useless. Again this means that every Gallery developer that wants to test their code on Microsoft SQL Server, will have to run this on a Windows based host.

Running this with VMware Server/Player, or even Xen, would have been much more flexible since we wouldn't have to worry that much about which host OS the developers use.

This is a direct example of how the limitations imposed by Microsoft makes it hard for end users and developers, and thats even after Microsoft themselves approached us to have us support their products. Truth be told, we are talking to Microsoft regarding getting proper licenses for our development needs, but that seems to be a time consuming task and I'm not really sure Microsoft themselves really know how they should tackle that.

5. Licensing Restrictions on Server Virtual Machine Mobility Situation: One of the most important benefits of virtualization is the mobility of virtual machines, given that an entire application and operating system environment can be encapsulated in a virtual machine and then moved from machine to machine, replicated to disaster recovery sites, and migrated without downtime from one machine to another dynamically through VMotion. Most virtualization customers have adopted and actively use capabilities such as VMotion and Distributed Resource Scheduling to balance resources across their applications and hardware, avoid hardware downtime, and facilitate scaling and responsiveness in their IT infrastructure.

This point really bothers me. Basically the new license terms prohibits movement of Windows Server licenses more than once per 90 days. Does Microsoft really believe that VMware VMotion users will abide by this? And seriously, what is the point? First they give me 4 virtualized instances for each Microsoft Server 2003 Advanced Server license I buy, then they try to tell me that I can't move the virtualized instances between my physical hosts? I'm sorry Microsoft, but you will definately have to drag me to court, kicking and screaming, before I even consider taking that seriously.

As far as the rest of the document released by VMware goes, I'm going to leave that to the experts. Closed APIs in Longhorn etc. are beyond my current knowledge level so I'll refrain from commenting on that.

Mike Neil, Microsoft GM virtualization strategy, has also posted on the Technet Windows Server blog commenting on recent virtualization buzz and sharing his views on where virtualization is heading. While I agree with Mike's view that desktop virtualization isn't mature enough for consumers yet, I don't think that is a valid argument for the EULA limitations on running the home editions of Windows Vista in a virtualized environment. After all, the maturity level he is looking for can only come from mature virtualization vendors, and right now Microsofts actions can not be seen as mature at all.

I really thought Microsoft were beginning to understand the value of virtualization, at least it's value to end users, with the 4 for 1 license deals and the recent SQL Server Enterprise license change, sadly it seems that this is just the somewhat random results of Microsofts repositioning in the virtualization field.

Microsoft has made a Server Virtualization Calculator available which really makes it easy to figure out your licensing needs if you are currently virtualizing Windows Servers, or planning to.

It's an easy to use calculator, just fill in the number of processor sockets, Microsoft licenses per socket not per core, on each of your host servers and the number of VMs you want to run on it. It will then calculate your license needs, as well as a cost estimate. Beware though that the default licensing fees are based on the USD price if you have a Open agreement.

If only it was that easy to get valid licensing information from Microsoft every time...