He said that virtualization uptake has not been very high in the SMB space, where it has been thought to be somewhat complex. Clinton Ho, a virtual private networking specialist on the Windows Server Essentials team at Microsoft, said that Essentials R2 is aimed at the IT generalist, not at IT pros. Microsoft provided wizards that are designed to simplify setting up a VM to run Essentials R2.
Buy windows server 2012 r2 cals plus#
"With Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials, the product licensing terms have been expanded to enable you to run one operating system instance on the physical server in order to run Hyper-V, plus a second instance on that server in order to run Essentials as a virtual machine," the white paper states (p. Microsoft eased the licensing terms to run it in a VM, according to the company's white paper description. There will be two new ways to deploy Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials: in a virtual machine (VM) or on premises as part of a server role. However, the limit on the number of users seems to depend on how the product is deployed. Essentials R2, like its predecessor, supports up to 25 users and 50 devices, and O'Donovan said that "the 25-user limit probably won't change" by the time of product release. Microsoft has published "datasheet" and "white paper" publications that describe Essentials R2 at this page, but pricing details aren't known yet.
When buying Essentials R2 as a server role, it's available with the Standard or Datacenter editions of Windows Server 2012 R2. The server role is called the "Windows Server Essential Experience" edition. It will be available as a Server Edition and as a server role of Windows Server 2012 R2. Windows Server 2012 R2 Essentials will be available in two new ways.
Buy windows server 2012 r2 cals software#
SMB are increasingly adopting software as a service and bring-your-own-device support, she contended. Microsoft is eyeing the SMB server market because SMBs are expected to order more than 28 million on-premises servers by 2017, according to O'Donovan. For instance, the earlier Essentials release didn't coincide with the release of Windows Server 2012 but happened two months later. In a press briefing, Sinead O'Donovan, director of program management for Windows Server Essentials at Microsoft, said that "our schedule for Essentials will be no different from Windows Server 2012 R2." She added that this approach with Essentials R2 is new for Microsoft.