THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA

Tonight was the last night of Gardener's World for this year and I'll be having to wait until Spring to get my UK Gardening show addiction fix.  But fall to winter is actually a busy time in the garden.  In the fall, last weekend and this weekend I've been planting pansies, violas, snapdragons and other annuals as well as tulips, daffoldils. 

I'm forcing Paperwhites for Christmas and ordering seed catalogs and planning what I'll be planting next spring.

So... right about now you are probably going ...what the heck does this have to do about technology?  Well other than not much, it's just showcasing that while fall and winter may mean to others that it's time to stay in the house, for me this is a time of planning what I'll be doing next Spring.

Just like RIGHT NOW is when you need to be planning what you'll be 'growing' for your clients. 

Let me revisit again the idea of virtualization and licensing and the 1+2 virtualization rights.

I was asked...

"Can you, buy Server 2012.

Exercise the downgrade rights, and install Essentials on a child? Or do the downgrade rights only cover a new install stand alone?

At the end of the day I have a client that is small, they are looking at Essentials, but it needs to be installed on a Hyper-V Child so their LOB application can run on another Hyper-V.

I have a feeling that you need to buy the Essentials along with the Server 2012 to keep things running properly."

The answer is ...no you don't.

You buy Windows 2012 standard.  This is easiest if they buy VL as all of these licenses and keys will be up on the VLSC site.  You get up in VLSC a copy of Windows 2012 Standard and then all of the downgrade rights versions that kick in. 

You can downgrade a child to Windows 2012 Essentials, SBS 2011 Essentials, or Windows 2008 R2 (and probably a few older).  So you buy Windows 2012 standard.  You then get the absolute right to install a child of Windows 2012 Essentials in one child, and then another copy of Windows 2012 in the second child. 

You will need to buy user cals in order to license the access of the member server .  And I'd strongly recommend doing so before 12/1 as user cal prices are going up.  I've seen several official emails(1) indicating that user cal prices are going up. 

Meanwhile we're starting to grow a new garden and the new allotment is up at www.essentialsbuilddoc.com  Feel free to suggest topics you'd like to see covered in the Essentials forum http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/winserveressentials/threads

Bottom line we've entered into the overwhelming season of the technology year called "understanding all of these new releases" and we've got a bumper crop of them right now.

(1) Effective December 1, you can expect an approximately 15% price increase in the cost of User CALs.  Device CALs will not be affected.