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Tuesday 4 October 2011

SharePoint 2010 Licensing for Dummies

Recently I was working on setting up a SharePoint 2010 Farm and understanding licensing was a nightmare. So many options and different products makes it a complicated matter. I tried to put a small table which helps on high level to understand what licenses are required. This is not comprehensive list but just a quick reference guide for dummies to get a idea about the various different licenses required and various option to set up a SharePoint 2010 Farm:

Wherever I mentioend SQL Server 2008 we can also utilize the free version of SQL which is SQL Server 2008 Express depending upon the requirment. Since this version of SQL does not need any license I have not added in the table below but obviously it has its own limitations. If you are using SQL Server Express Edition you dont need SQL Server Licenses as well the the CAL or Processor License.

Farm Type
SharePoint Server 2010 (Enterprise or Standard)
SharePoint 2010 CAL
(Enterprise or Standard)
SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites
(Ent or Std)
SQL Server
(Enterprise or Standard)
SQL Server
(CAL or Processor License)
Windows 
Server 2008
(Enterprise or Standard)
Windows Server 2008 External Connector
Windows Server  2008 CAL
 FAST     Search   
SharePoint 2010 Foundation Farm only for Intranet Sites
No
No
No
Yes
Yes

Yes
(With Windows valid license you can use SharePoint Foundation for free)
No
Yes (A CAL for each user accessing the site)
No
SharePoint 2010 Foundation Farm only for Internet Sites
No
No
No
Yes
Yes (Better to get the processor based license)

Yes
(With Windows valid license you can use SharePoint Foundation for free)
Yes
(All the server in the farm will need this.)
No
No
SharePoint 2010 Server Farm for Intranet Sites
Yes (Depending on your need decide Enterprise or Standard Server for the FARM)
Yes
(Depending on your need decide Enterprise or Standard CAL's for each user)
No
Yes
Yes

Yes
No
Yes (A CAL for each user accessing the site)
No
SharePoint 2010 Server Farm only for Internet Sites
No
No
Yes (Depending on your need decide Enterprise or Standard version
Yes
Yes (Better to get the processor based license)

Yes

Yes (Each Server require an external connector.)
No
No
SharePoint 2010 Server Farm only for Internet Sites with FAST Seacrh
Yes (Need Enterprise version to use FAST search)
Yes (Need Enterprise CAL's to use FAST search)
No
Yes
Yes 

Yes

No
Yes (A CAL for each user accessing the site)
Yes
SharePoint 2010 Server Farm Both for Intranet and Internet Sites
Yes
Yes (Depending on your need decide Enterprise or Standard CAL's for your intranet based users)
Yes (Depending on your need decide Enterprise or Standard version
Yes
Yes 
(Better to get the processor based license)
Yes

Yes (Each Server serving the external users require an external connector.)
Yes (A CAL for each user accessing the site)
No

Also read very helpful FAQ from Directions on Microsoft @ SharePoint Licensing

1 comment:

Vishnu Mittal said...

This post is really very useful for all from novice to experts in understanding the license requirement to meet the business need.This will help managers in doing cost benefit analysis for implementating and selecting the best possible sharepoint solution.

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