According to Fact.MR, a market research and competitive intelligence provider, the global server virtualization software market is estimated to achieve a valuation of US$ 16 billion by 2033, expanding at a 7.1% CAGR from 2023 to 2033.

Server virtualization is a cost-effective technique to deliver web hosting services while maximizing the use of current resources in IT infrastructure. Servers only utilize a small part of their computing power without server virtualization. Since the workload is allocated to only a subset of the network’s servers, servers lie idle. Data centers get overloaded with underutilized servers, resulting in resource and power waste.

Microsoft has announced a major overhaul to its Windows licensing regimes that make it rather easier to use its operating system in the cloud – without highlighting the reason for the change is to get the European Union off its back.

The biggest change is a virtual core licensing option for Windows Server, as opposed to paying for the OS based on the physical processor cores in host machines.

“Today, Windows Server is licensed by physical core, which means customers must have access to the physical server hardware to ensure that they have enough Windows Server licenses to cover all physical cores in the machine,” Microsoft’s chief partner officer Nicole Dezen explained in a Monday announcement.

“With the virtual core licensing option, customers can elect to license Windows Server by the number of virtual cores they are using in virtual machines, making Windows Server easier to license when virtualizing or outsourcing.”

Microsoft’s aim with this change is to get users migrating Windows Server into the cloud. But not just any cloud – the new license does not apply to Alibaba, Amazon Web Services, Google, and Microsoft. Instead the target is clouds run by Microsoft’s partner community. We’re also told the new rules otherwise apply worldwide.

Windows 10 and 11 have also been given a similar update, with holders of a Microsoft 365 F3, E3, or E5 license able to run the operating systems “on their own servers or on outsourcers’ servers … regardless of whether the user’s primary device has a Qualifying Operating System (QOS) — eg, Windows 11 Pro — and without the need for any additional licenses.”

That’s a change from the current regime that requires customers who lack a primary device with a QOS to acquire an add-on license to virtualize Windows 10 or Windows 11.

Microsoft revealed the changes in an advisory for partners and Dezen’s aforementioned statement, both of which paper over the real reason for the changes.

That reason is the legal action brought by European clouds who felt that Microsoft’s software licensing programs represented unfair competition and left them at a disadvantage. The Redmond giant made concessions to end those lawsuits, with Microsoft president Brad Smith promising, “we will make it easier than ever to license Windows Server for virtual environments and the cloud by relaxing licensing rules that reflected legacy software licensing practices, where licenses are tied to physical hardware,” in a May 18 post.

Three and a bit months later, the US mega-corp is spinning the introduction of these promised licenses as generosity towards its partners, with a nod to its peace offering with European cloud providers.

Dezen’s announcement briefly references that truce, and adds her observation that “we welcome ongoing feedback from cloud providers, customers, and other stakeholders as these changes are implemented.” And Microsoft’s corporate blog spins the licenses as a responsible change that helps smaller players thrive, without specifically mentioning the legal action.

Perhaps readers might care to remember this the next time Microsoft talks up its ethics?

The new licenses become available on October 1. Microsoft said training sessions for customers and partners will commence in coming weeks.

Other changes include allowing cloud solution providers (CSPs) to sell customers either one- or three-year subscriptions “for many products including Windows Server, Remote Desktop Services (RDS), and SQL Server.” More monthly billing options will also be made available for one-year offers.

Microsoft has also added a CSP “hoster” program that allows partners “to pre-build hosted desktop and server solutions that they can sell to customers along with licenses in CSP (license-included hosting), or to customers that already have licenses (customer BYOL-to-partner solutions).”

The desktop version of that program further complicates Microsoft’s virtual desktop options, which already include Windows 365 Cloud PCs, Azure Virtual Desktops, and the ability to run desktop-as-a-service wares from Citrix and VMware in Azure. Good luck figuring out how the new Windows client licenses apply across all that lot

Microsoft yesterday announced a slew of Teams features available now, coming later this year, and even arriving in 2021. The standout features are focused on mental health, including virtual commutes, meditation breaks, and work habits. Other new additions span Together Mode, Dynamic View, Breakout Rooms, recaps, presentation, calling, and new devices.

At its Build 2020 developers conference in May, Microsoft gave business developers new tools to build Teams apps. At its Inspire 2020 partners conference in July, Microsoft doubled down on helping businesses transition to a hybrid remote work approach. This week, at its Ignite 2020 IT Pros conference, the company is talking about mental health.

Since 2018, Microsoft Teams has been the company’s fastest-growing business app ever, long before lockdowns started juicing up remote work and learning numbers. In April, Teams hit 75 million daily active users, and in May Microsoft’s Jeff Teper told VentureBeat Teams “will be even bigger than Windows.” While the pandemic has resulted in impressive growth, Microsoft is realizing it has a responsibility to make sure companies using its platform in an increasing WFH and remote work world can offer mental health tools.

Software Asset Management has traditionally focused on managing the physical license installations on the desktops, laptops and servers of an enterprise. By this time, most companies have at least the outline of a SAM program defined and are executing against that plan to ensure that their license entitlements do not fall short of the overall installations and/or utilisation of that software. There is some level of discovery occurring, whether that is SCCM, Universal Discovery or another third-party vendor tool. Along with discovery, there is the means to provide reports and dashboards.

Taking one more step, the ability to track utilisation of software and implement a license re-harvesting process rounds out the tools needed to manage the software asset environment.

So, if you have, or are planning to implement the tasks above, you should be feeling pretty good about your overall SAM program. Then, as a result of an audit or the implementation of a virtual desktop environment, the light bulb goes off that you really don’t have a good handle on the software licenses being used, or not, in your desktop virtualisation and server spaces.

The desktop virtualisation environment is a great way to provide remote access for internal and external resources within your company. The creation of the desktop virtualisation icons for both internally developed applications and commercial software is all based upon the Active Directory (AD) groups that are assigned to them. Sounds straight forward, right? Create an icon that launches a software program and assign an AD group to the icon. What you, as a Software Asset Manager, may not be familiar with are the licensing terms applicable to the software being published in desktop virtualisation environments and what the AD groups actually look like.

You need to identify every licensed? software title that is being launched through desktop virtualisation, know what the virtual use rights are and create a process for provisioning that includes an approval by the SAM team that validates whether a license is needed and, if so, if there is one available.

That takes care of the current requests, but what about the legacy users who have been accessing applications in your desktop virtualisation environment for many years? This requires collaboration between your Desktop Virtualisation, Active Directory and SAM teams to review how your AD groups are defined. Standards need to be created so that the name of every AD group that launches licensable software reflects the software name. This segregates the desktop virtualisation icons and streamlines utilisation reporting. Once the desktop virtualisation icons are named appropriately, a deep dive into how your enterprise AD groups are created is required. If your organisation creates a minimal number of AD groups to more easily manage the environment, chances are there will be many more users assigned to desktop virtualisation icons that COULD launch licensable software than is required. The next item to check is to see if you have nested AD groups. This would be an AD group within an AD group; this greatly expands the number of users who COULD launch licensable software. The key to minimising the number of entitlements required for desktop virtualisation is to create separate AD groups specifically for the desktop virtualisation icons that are launching licensable software.

I have capitalised “COULD” in the previous sentences because this is the premise on which many software companies base their audits in the desktop virtualisation environment. If a user is in an AD group linked to a desktop virtualisation icon with licensable software, an entitlement for that user may be needed. This is where knowing the virtual use rights for your software becomes very important. There are two scenarios for this, the basic premise is that a user owns an entitlement for licensable software that is installed on their desktop but they also have a need to access via desktop virtualisation. The first scenario is that the entitlement owned for the desktop license covers the user’s access via a virtual environment. The second scenario is that the desktop entitlement does not cover access via a virtual environment and a separate license is required. It is the responsibility of the SAM team to know their virtual environment, their product use rights and to have a process in place to approve and manage the licenses consumed.

For the Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) environment, you should ensure that you have the underlying infrastructure licenses that are required for access. With some vendor products, licenses are linked to the operating system license. With others, you might need to purchase device-based virtual desktop access licenses. The same application software requirements hold true for the VDI environment, every software vendor will have separate licensing guidelines.

Virtualisation in the server environment is even more complex than for desktop virtualisation. The bottom line is to know the version of the OS you are purchasing and the product use rights associated with it. In some instances , you can have an unlimited number of virtual machines running on one host. In others, you may have limits on the total number of virtual machines you can run. There are also guidelines for when you can move a license from one machine to another, e.g., a 90 day waiting period may be required, which might also be waived in certain circumstances. Other licensing models include licensing based upon the number of cores on a machine.

There are many other product use rights associated with server software, including CALs, external connectors, core licensing, processor licensing and management devices. The best defence is an educated Software Asset Management team who knows the product use rights for the licenses being used in their environment.