Licensing Notes for Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2

Important Note: You may require further consultation on the content of this document. You may not have the in-house expertise or the time to apply the instructions included with this document. Either way, Tecsys can help: just contact our support team at SMBSupport@Tecsys.com with a brief description of your issue(s) and one of our technical specialists will contact you directly.

Before acting on any information in this document, please ensure that you have contacted a TECSYS Technical Specialist through SMBSupport@tecsys.com.

The Tecsys iTopia, WMS, TMS and Streamline products all require the standard edition of Microsoft SQL Server as they use it for data storage. Although there is a free version of MS SQL the standard edition is not free and must be licensed.

The MS SQL Server itself requires a license and then CALs or Client Access Licenses are required for each Named User or Named Device that will be accessing the SQL Server.

The following list outlines the options for CALs relevant to the software provided by TECSYS:

  1. Runtime CALs:

    • The most cost effective method of licensing a MS SQL Server is to use Runtime CALs (Client Access Licenses) from the application vendor, in this case, from Tecsys Inc.

    • With SQL Runtime CALs you do not need to license the SQL server itself. It will be covered by the SQL Runtime CALs. This in itself is a considerable saving.

    • With the SQL runtime CALs, the SQL server can only be used with the software supplied by the vendor of the SQL Runtime CALs. For example, if you purchase SQL Runtime CALs from TECSYS, then you can only use the SQL Server with Tecsys products. You cannot use it with products from another vendor.

  2. Processor License(s):

    • One license per processor (regardless of the number of cores) with unlimited users. Tip: with a single processor server, the break-even point for cost is approximately 40 users.

  3. MS SQL Server License PLUS SQL User CALs and/or SQL Device CALs:

    • SQL User CALs are per named user. This is not to be confused with concurrent users. If you have 15 users and only 5 of them will be using SQL, then you require 5 SQL User CALs. If all 15 users will be using SQL, but only 5 at a time (3 different shifts, for example), then you require 15 SQL User CALs.

    • SQL Device CALS are per named device. If you have 3 people in the warehouse (again, 3 shifts) that share a PC, then you require only 1 SQL Device CAL for that PC.

    Note: You can have a mix of Device and User CALs to satisfy your needs.

When you are using a product like PointForce iTopia, all users communicate with iTopia and only iTopia communicates with SQL. In this scenario, iTopia is considered by Microsoft to be a "front-end" to SQL, and the following guidelines apply:

  • You must license the total number of end users and/or devices interfacing with the front-end to the MS SQL Server.

  • Let’s assume that you have 5 users running iTopia, and 5 other users that are required to run Crystal Reports against the MS SQL Server. You would then require a CAL for each of the 10 users.

  • In addition, the MS SQL Server will be running on a Microsoft Operating System which also requires an Operating System CAL for each named user or device.

 
Back