By Rob Horwitz [bio]
Posted: May 21, 2007

• Illustration: Operations Manager 2007 Licensing
• Chart: Microsoft MPs Covered by the Standard OML

The following is the full text of an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Creation of a new, low-cost management license for desktops and other client devices makes it economically feasible for organizations to implement widespread monitoring of such devices with Operations Manager (OM) 2007. Inexpensive monitoring of client devices is a critical part of Microsoft's long-range plans for more dynamic client management. However, because client monitoring imposes a burden on IT staff, some customers may resist the opening offered by OM 2007, and they may restrict active monitoring to "critical" desktops, point-of-sale systems, and ticketing kiosks.

OM 2007 has two types of licenses. An OM 2007 server license is required for each server device running the OM 2007 server software itself. An Operations Management License (OML) is required for each device—which can be another server or a client device—managed by OM. OMLs come in three editions: two (Standard and Enterprise) for servers and one Client OML. Every managed device connects to an OM server, which monitors its performance and overall health, and can alert administrators or operators when a managed device appears to be failing. (For an in-depth review of OM 2007, see "Operations Manager 2007 Explored" in the June 2007 Update.)

As is customary with other Microsoft server-based products, Software Assurance (SA), which conveys upgrade rights, is available for all OM 2007 related licenses for an annual charge equal to 25% the cost of the original license. Customers who have SA coverage active on their MOM 2005 server or OML licenses as of April 1, 2007, have rights to upgrade their MOM 2005 licenses to the new version.

Licensing OM 2007 Servers

Unlike most other Microsoft server applications, which come in two or more editions (typically Standard and Enterprise) there is only one edition of Operations Manager 2007 and thus only one type of management server license. (A scaled-down version of OM 2007 is integrated with Windows Server Update Services and offered under a different product name—System Center Essentials 2007. This product, targeted at businesses with up to 500 PCs and 30 servers, uses a different set of licenses than OM 2007 and will be the subject of a future article.)

One OM 2007 server license is required for each server machine running any OM 2007 server software, regardless of the number of CPUs in the server.

As with other Microsoft server-based products, such as Exchange, the OM 2007 server infrastructure can—for scalability, availability, or security purposes—be spread across multiple server machines, each acting in one or several OM 2007 roles. Whether an OM server is operating in the root management server role (which coordinates the other OM servers and is the server that consoles connect to), management server role (which offloads monitoring tasks from the root management server), gateway server role (used as an intermediary to manage computers across a firewall or in an untrusted domain), or any other OM server role or combination of roles, each physical or virtual machine running an instance of OM requires one OM 2007 server license.

In addition to an OM 2007 server license, all OM installations require SQL Server to be licensed as well. Specifically, OM 2007 relies on SQL Server 2005 Standard Edition (SE) or Enterprise Edition (EE) to host the OM 2007 database and the SQL Reporting Services used by OM.

Acquiring Server Licenses

The OM 2007 server license is available on its own for US$573 or as part of a bundle, called Operations Manager Server 2007 with SQL Server Technology, for US$1,307.

(Note that all prices quoted in this article are the retail prices for purchases made through Open Business, Microsoft's least discounted volume purchasing program; organizations can get discounts of 20% to 30% off these prices, depending on volume.)

The OM Server 2007 with SQL Server Technology bundle includes one OM 2007 server license and one license for SQL Server 2005 SE. The SQL Server software can be hosted on the same computer as the OM server or on a separate computer. While the bundle includes the code for the full version of SQL Server 2005 SE, the bundle's product usage rights stipulate that the instance of SQL Server 2005 SE cannot be used for any other purpose than for storing OM 2007 data.

The stand-alone OM 2007 licensing option requires that SQL Server be licensed separately, if the customer hasn't already done so. SQL Server itself offers two licensing models—it can be licensed by purchasing a per-processor license for each CPU used in the SQL Server machine or by buying a server license for each server, and SQL Server Client Access Licenses (CALs) for each client—in this case, for each managed device. It can be quite expensive to license SQL Server this way, so unless SQL Server is also being used for other purposes within the organization, the bundle is typically the most economical route.

As a general rule, there are two reasons customers would acquire the OM 2007 server license on its own rather than as part of the bundle. The first is that they already have fully licensed SQL Server machines with spare capacity within their organization and want to consolidate OM 2007 database activity on these servers. The second is that they need to scale their OM system beyond one OM server machine. Since multiple OM servers can share the same instance of SQL Server, a customer can buy one copy of the bundle for the first OM server and the freestanding OM license for the others, which will use the SQL Server that came with the bundle.

Licensing Managed Devices

OMLs are roughly equivalent to the CALs required for clients that access other Microsoft servers, and they are required for almost all devices that OM servers monitor. The two exceptions are network devices that function at OSI layer 3 or below—such as switches, hubs, routers, bridges, and modems—and OM 2007 servers themselves, which can be monitored by OM 2007 but do not require a separate OML.

It does not matter whether the OS and applications being monitored on devices are from Microsoft or from a third party (e.g., a Linux OS or Oracle database)—Microsoft still requires customers to purchase OMLs. However, customers never need more than one OML per monitored device, even if the device runs multiple virtual machines (VMs) and OM is monitoring each one. And, like Microsoft's policy with CALs, the version of the OML must be equivalent to or greater than the version of the OM server software—in other words, an OM 2007 OML allows a device to be managed by OM 2007 servers and MOM 2005 servers.

In a Microsoft-only environment, there are no other client-related licensing fees beyond OMLs. Microsoft does not charge additional fees to install any of the Microsoft-authored OM 2007 agent software (i.e., code that runs on the monitored device) or to use any Microsoft-authored OM 2007 Management Pack (MP), which encapsulates the operational knowledge needed by OM to ascertain the health of a component and to help human operators find and fix the underlying cause of an unhealthy state. The same is true for most third parties that offer MPs for their own Windows applications. However, third parties offering OM agents for non-Windows platforms typically charge a fee to license these agents and associated MPs, and third parties shipping MPs that improve the monitoring of Microsoft software also charge a fee.

Server OMLs

For purposes of OM licensing, network devices that function at layer 4 or higher—such as load balancers, firewalls, network printers, and NAS devices—are considered servers. There are two different types of OMLs for servers—Standard and Enterprise. Whether a server requires the Standard OML or the more expensive Enterprise OML depends on the type of workloads running on the server that is being monitored by OM 2007.

The Standard OML

The Standard OML permits OM to monitor system hardware and core server OS components as well as a subset of the higher-level services incorporated into Windows Server, specifically, file and storage services (including SharePoint services), print services, clustering services (Network Load Balancing and Computer Cluster Server), and three network infrastructure services: Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), Distributed Naming Service (DNS), and Windows Internet Naming Service (WINS).

These rules also apply to non-Microsoft systems. If a device uses a non-Microsoft OS and a third-party agent and MP are being used to monitor an equivalent set of OS services as listed above, then a Standard OML will suffice. (For a list of the Microsoft-authored MPs that can be used to monitor Windows Servers licensed with a Standard OML, see the chart "Microsoft MPs Covered by the Standard OML".)

The Standard OML can be acquired on its own for US$155 or as part of the Standard edition of a special license suite called the Server Management License (SML), which sells for US$240. Besides including the Standard OML, the Standard SML adds a SMS Configuration Management License (required for a device to be managed by SMS) and a Data Protection Management (DPM) License (required for every server that is backed up by DPM). All three of the component management licenses in the Standard SML must be applied to the same server and there is no "step-up" option available for customers who already own one or more of the component licenses included in the Standard SML.

Enterprise OML

The Enterprise OML is a superset of the Standard OML, purchased to monitor any workload that is not covered by the Standard OML. These "premium workloads," as Microsoft sometimes calls them, include the monitoring of any Microsoft or third-party server application (such as Citrix, Oracle, SAP, or SQL Server) as well as the monitoring of a variety of Windows Server services, including directory and identity management services, such as Active Directory; Web servers; application services, such as Distributed Transaction Coordinator; and remote access, such as Routing and Remote Access service and Terminal Services.

Although no OML is required for an OM server itself, anyone who wants to monitor SQL Server storing OM data on another computer—including the SQL Server included in the OM Server 2007 with SQL Server Technology bundle—must purchase an Enterprise OML.

An Enterprise OML can be acquired on its own for US$426. Volume licensing customers with SA on a Standard OML have the option to purchase a step-up license to convert a Standard OML to an Enterprise OML.

The Enterprise OML will also be available later this year as part of a new Enterprise SML. Besides including an OM 2007 Enterprise OML and a SMS Configuration Management License, the Enterprise SML will include a new, as yet undefined, Enterprise version of the DPM license, as well as a license for System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, a new product expected in late 2007, which will allow administrators to quickly create and deploy new virtual machines (VMs) with the OS and applications fully installed and preconfigured. As with the Standard SML, all management licenses in the Enterprise SML license suite will need to be used on the same device. Volume licensing customers with SA on a Standard SML will have the option to purchase a step-up license to convert a Standard SML to an Enterprise SML.

Client OML

A Client OML permits OM to monitor any aspect (e.g., system hardware, OS, applications) of a client device which will likely, but not necessarily, be running a Microsoft client OS or embedded OS.

The Client OML is new to OM 2007; previously the monitoring of a client device required the far more expensive Standard or Enterprise OMLs (approximately US$200 and US$400, respectively). The Client OML can be acquired on its own for US$32, or as part of Microsoft's Enterprise CAL Suite, which includes client-side licenses for a variety of Microsoft server-based products.

Client monitoring can be extensive, with OM observing the health, reliability, and performance of both the OS and all applications on the device, including Office, Internet Explorer, and Media Player. Or it can be narrow, limited to audit collection (aggregation of security log events for detecting or determining the scope of security breaches) or Agentless Exception Monitoring (AEM).

AEM enables OM 2007 to monitor OSs and applications for exception errors (often called Dr. Watson errors). By aggregating error reports on an OM server, IT staff can determine how often client OS components or applications crash and how many computers and users are affected. AEM provides the same functionality as its Corporate Error Reporting 3.0 tool that is free to customers with Windows Client SA, but it eliminates the need to maintain a separate tool.

How Practical Is Client Monitoring?

The fact that Microsoft includes a Client OML in its Enterprise CAL Suite indicates the company's intent to sell customers on widespread use of client-side monitoring using OM 2007. However, there is measurable IT overhead associated with in-depth health monitoring of any machine, including tuning the monitoring system and interpreting the output of the monitoring system on an ongoing basis. Most customers will find that when it comes to most users' desktops, the IT cost of such in-depth monitoring outweighs the benefits. However, some organizations may find that less-intensive monitoring—such as monitoring that is restricted to examining only security events and system crashes (using audit collection and AEM)—provides valuable information while consuming an acceptable level of IT resources, and thus justifies the cost of a Client OML.

In-depth monitoring of clients makes the most sense for devices used by many people throughout the day and for desktops that are exceptionally business critical. When public devices such as Internet kiosks, casino gaming machines, airport ticketing machines, and ATMs fail, users get frustrated and walk away; unlike a typical corporate desktop, no assigned user will attempt to diagnose the problem or bring the problem to the attention of IT.

For business-critical desktops, such as financial trading workstations, the IT overhead and licensing costs associated with OM 2007—based monitoring may be worth the expense if it keeps downtime to a minimum.

Resources

The Operations Manager 2007 pricing and licensing page is at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/opsmgr/howtobuy/default.mspx. Pricing and licensing information for System Center Server Management License Suites is available at www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/howtobuy/esml.mspx.

For a technical overview of Operations Manager 2007, see "Operations Manager 2007 Explored" in the June 2007 Update.

For more information about the Enterprise CAL Suite, see "Enterprise CAL Suite Reduces Complexity, at a Price," on page 27 of the Mar. 2007 Update.

Changes made to MOM 2005 licensing a year after it shipped are summarized in "Management Licenses Modified, Bundled" on page 18 of the June 2006 Update. MOM 2005's original licensing model is detailed in "MOM 2005 Ships with New Licensing Model" on page 18 of the Oct. 2004 Update.

SQL Server 2005 licensing and pricing information can be found in "New SQL Server Pricing, Products Announced" on page 11 of the Mar. 2005 Update and at www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/default.mspx.