System Center Server Management Suites Frequently Asked Questions

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The System Center server management suites are the best way to acquire the full-range of server management functionality on the Windows platform delivered by our System Center products. There are both enterprise and datacenter editions available to meet the diverse needs of customers with varying levels of infrastructure maturity.

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Changes to the management suites reflect Microsoft’s commitment to deliver products and licensing terms that meet customer needs through:

Note that licensing changes become effective when customers adopt System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2 and subsequent releases of the other products included in the System Center server management suites.

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The System Center server management suite enterprise launched November 1, 2007, and the System Center server management suite datacenter launched July 1, 2009.

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Pricing information for the System Center server management suites can be found on the Licensing the Server Management Suites Volume Licensing page.

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The System Center server management suite enterprise is a comprehensive solution for end-to-end management of physical and virtual Windows server environments to enable a dynamic server infrastructure. System Center server management suite enterprise allows for per device licensing of up to 4 operating system environments. The System Center server management suite enterprise is recommended for licensing of physical boxes and servers with light virtualization loads.

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The System Center server management suite datacenter provides a cost effective way for customers to comprehensively manage highly virtualized environments. The System Center server management suite datacenter is licensed per processor and provides rights to manage unlimited operating system environments per device. A minimum of two processors must be licensed for each server device covered with the System Center server management suite datacenter. The System Center server management suite datacenter is recommended for licensing highly virtualized environments.

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The System Center server management suite datacenter 2-processor minimum was put in place to maintain consistency with Windows Server Datacenter Edition licensing.

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The components included in the System Center server management suites are:

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The primary difference between the Enterprise and Datacenter editions is the limitation on the number of licensed operating system environments (OSEs). The Enterprise edition licenses 4 OSEs and is sold per device. The Datacenter edition licenses unlimited OSEs and is sold per processor which requires at least two processor licenses be purchased per server.

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The pricing relationship between the server management suite enterprise and server management suite datacenter is such that the server management suite datacenter becomes more cost effective in the following situations:

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The server management suite enterprise is the most cost effective way to acquire server management suite licenses for multiple products to manage the same physical server device.

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The System Center server management suites should always be a customer’s first choice for server management. More and more customers are implementing server virtualization, and the server management suites provide options to helps customers manage server workloads in both physical and virtual environments. Additionally, the server management suites allow customers to more fully manage application workloads like Microsoft Exchange Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server.
For management of servers that are not virtual hosts the System Center server management suites makes sense for customers who want to deploy more than two of the following component products within the suites:

If none of these scenarios applies, then the customer should consider acquiring the individual products on a standalone basis.

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No. Pricing for the System Center server management suites has been set to provide approximately a 25% discount relative to the prices for the standalone component products.

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Yes, the Enterprise Server Management Licenses for Operations Manager 2007 R2, Configuration Manager 2007 R2, System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008 and Data Protection Manager 2007 will be available for purchase on a standalone basis.

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Generally the server management suites only include the server management licenses for the managed server operating system environments (OSEs). Virtual Machine Manager is an exception to this in that the management server software is included with the suites. For the other products in the suites customers will need to purchase the management server software licenses for the following products included in the server management suites if they deploy either edition of the server management suites:

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Yes, Software Assurance coverage is required on the server management suites.

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No. The server management suite edition does not need to match the edition of Windows Server to which the Suite license is assigned. For example, a customer running a mix of Windows Server operating system environments (OSEs) and Linux OSEs on the same server device may purchase Windows Server Enterprise Edition for the 4 Windows Server OSEs and purchase the System Center server management suite datacenter to manage all OSEs running on the server.

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Yes, licenses to “step-up” from the standalone enterprise server management licenses (Server ML) for System Center Operations Manager 2007 R2, Configuration Manager 2007 R2, and Data Protection Manager 2007 to the server management suite enterprise will be available for customers with Software Assurance (SA) coverage. There will also be “step-up” licenses from the standard server MLs for these products to the enterprise server MLs, effectively allowing any standalone license covered with SA to be upgraded all the way to the server management suite enterprise. Step-ups to the server management suite datacenter will be available sometime in 2010.

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Yes, customers with Software Assurance coverage on their standard server MLs or the server management suite standard licenses will be able to purchase “step-up” licenses to upgrade to the server management suite enterprise.

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No. For a given server, the customer will need to reassign their server management suite enterprise license to a different server, and then purchase and assign the appropriate management license(s) to the original server.

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Yes, the Core Client Access License (CAL) and Enterprise CAL Suites are licensing suites designed for personal computers, including management functionality. The System Center Configuration Manager 2007 Client Management License (ML) is included in the Core CAL Suite, and the System Center Operations Manager 2007 Client ML is included in the Enterprise CAL Suite.

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No. The Configuration Manager 2007 Management Licenses (ML) included in the server management suites and the Core CAL are different editions. The server management suites will include the Enterprise and Standard Server MLs, respectively, while Core CAL includes the Client ML.

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No. The components of either edition of the server management suite are sold as a single license for use on a single server.