Expert Tips from the CompuCom Microsoft Licensing Desk

General Microsoft licensing rules state that customers are required to license every copy of every Microsoft product they install, configure and use, including all physical and virtual instances. As such, licensing a development and test environment can be expensive and challenging to manage as new servers are set and others are torn down. MSDN subscriptions provide a convenient and cost-effective manner to help clients license these environments.

All Visual Studio 2010 individual development tools are licensed on a per-user basis. MSDN subscriptions provide a blanket licensing mechanism for development and test environments for all Microsoft products installed on desktops, laptops and servers. Licensed per person, MSDN subscriptions are acquired by customers and assigned to team members, and they enable those team members to install, configure and use specified Microsoft software on any number of devices and/or virtual machines to design, develop, test and demonstrate their programs. As long as every person installing, configuring or using that software has an appropriate MSDN subscription, no additional licensing or reporting is required. When a team member leaves, the MSDN subscription can be assigned to someone else (with the caveat that MSDN subscription licenses can be reassigned at most only once every 90 days in Microsoft Volume Licensing programs).

Below are three common scenarios for licensing:

• Database Admin Licensing Scenario—Your company has database administrators who perform database restores and administration functions on SQL in Dev/Test environments. Any user who performs functions on a database within a Dev/Test environment needs to have an MSDN license.
  
  
• System Engineer Licensing Scenario—Your company has system engineers who perform installation or system resets for Windows OS Servers within a Dev/Test environment. Any user who performs functions such as an installation or system reset for Windows needs to have an MSDN license.
  
  
• UAT Testing—Your company has a number of end users who will review an application and help determine whether it meets the criteria for release. For purposes of acceptance testing, MSDN software may be accessed by end users who do not have an MSDN subscription. Acceptance testing must not include live production data.