Forget the Workspace, behold the WOWspace!
(Stephen Parker, Head of Cloud Strategy, NewLease)
Summary:
- Microsoft have announced a 28% increase in Volume Licensing costs for the Datacenter SKU
- SPLA pricing changes have NOT yet been announced (watch out for an update soon!)
- IF reflected into SPLA the 28% pricing increase would mean the VM density per physical server would have to increase by approximately 1 VM per physical server to deliver a “cash breakeven” between Standard and Datacenter.
Details:
Microsoft have recently provided information about how they will be adjusting the volume licensing costs for the soon to be released Windows Server 2012 R2. (The Microsoft datasheet is available here and Mary Jo Foley provides additional information here).
At this time they have NOT released any information about what this will mean to Windows Server 2012 R2 under the SPLA program although I would expect this to be sooner rather than later (early September maybe!). However even when this is announced any pricing changes will not come into affect until the 1st January 2014 so there will be time to review any changes to licensing if required.
Until there is an official announcement we cannot be sure of what changes will be made to SPLA pricing. However we can compare changes from 2012 to 2012 R2 for volume licensing. The following table is a combination of the two datasheets:
| Edition | Feature Comparison | Licensing Model | 2012 Pricing | 2012 R2 Pricing | % change |
| Datacenter | Unlimited virtual OSE, All features | Processor + CAL | $ 4,809.00 | $ 6,155.00 | 28% |
| Standard | Two virtual OSE, All features | Processor + CAL | $ 882.00 | $ 882.00 | 0% |
| Essentials | 2 processor, One OSE, Limited features | Server, 25 user limit | $ 501.00 | $ 501.00 | 0% |
| Foundation | 1 processor, Limited features | Server, 15 user limit | OEM Only | OEM Only |
OSE = Operating System Environment
Pricing in USD
Please review the underlying datasheets for further detail
As you can see the only price change is a 28% increase with the Datacenter edition. IF this is reflected in the SPLA pricing then this will clearly impact the VM densities required to make DC more cost effective than Standard.
With current pricing the break even in pure cash terms is between 5 and 6 VMs. A 28% increase would change this VM density to between 6 and 7.
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