Matt Meyer

It has come to my attention that Microsoft has recently changed their End User License Agreement (EULA) for Volume License customers that prevents moving a license from one server to another within a 90-day period.  They have even gone as far as to include Virtual Machines.  So if you have VMotion running in your virtual infrastructure, you are not legally allowed to VMotion the server from one host to another within a 90-day period.  To get around this, they require you need to have a separate license of Windows Server 2003 for each VM, plus an additional Windows license for each ESX host this VM could reside within a 90-day period.  For example, if you have 10 hosts in your farm, with 50 Virtual Machines, you need 500 Windows Server 2003 licenses.  I have only a few comments to make about this:

1.  Fuck Microsoft.  I love their products, but I hate their attitude when things don’t go their way.  Since 2003, I’ve been using VMware products for server consolidation and hardware reduction projects, and in these years Microsoft has been behind the curve in the virtualization market.  It’s not to say they didn’t try, they did, but they just suck at it.  What makes matters worse for Microsoft is they don’t have any competing product to ESX Server.

This is a terrible slap in the face to the world.  VMware ESX is the dominant Virtualiation platform for the Enterprise, and Microsoft has known this for quite some time.  Now, instead of playing ball they get they’re legal department to do their dirty work.  It is totally spineless.

2.  VMware ESX Server should be considered a platform, just like a HP, IBM or Dell hardware.  Each VM has a unique UUID, BIOS, CPU, memory, hard drive, and network adapter; everything that makes a server a server.  The fact that it runs on top of software instead of something physical should have no relevance to how Microsoft licenses their products.  If you have purchased a Windows Server 2003 license for each VM, this license should be tied to that VM, not the physical asset.  Since the license is installed inside a unique VM and not the physical hardware, then simply changing where the VM has cycles processes should have nothing to do with the EULA.