[AusNOG] AWS and MS SPLA

[David Hughes]

AWS has a SPLA.  They offer the underlying OS (no doubt licensed under SPLA) as part of the product.  They do not however offer their clients access to other Microsoft licenses (such as RDS SALs) via their SPLA.  They state that you need to bring your own.  And I don't think LM covers that.

So unless I have this wrong, potential clients could not bypass traditional Aussie VPS providers and use EC2 for replacing their multi-user RDS based office server or citrix farms etc.  (well, not legally).


David
...




On 14/11/2012, at 1:57 PM, Matthew Zobel wrote:

> Hosted services can only legally be licensed via SPLA. License Mobility requires a signed agreement between the client, service provider and approval from Microsoft, and SPLA. 
> 
> Having been through this with Microsoft in detail, to the best of my knowledge (IANAL) there would be no legal way to run windows on the platform without SPLA. 
> 
> Sent from my iPhone
> 
> On 14/11/2012, at 2:04 PM, David Hughes <David at Hughes.com.au> wrote:
> 
>> 
>> 
>> One thing that I find interesting is that AWS does not appear to offer any SPLA licensing.  Their doco implies you need to bring your own licenses which implies using the provisions of Microsoft's License Mobility.  Unless I'm mistaken, license mobility does not allow the migration of anything other than certain server software licenses (exchange, sql, lync, sharepoint etc).
>> 
>> So as far as I can see, it is illegal to run a windows based EC2 server with more than the default 2 Remote Desktop Services user licenses.  Also, those 2 users cannot run MS Office or other MS desktop apps as the licensing is not covered under Licence Mobility.
>> 
>> Am I missing something?  Anyone here have more MS licensing clue than me (which wouldn't be hard by the way).
>> 
>> 
>> David
>> ...
>> 
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