Reply by n/a from Hoplite Business Systems on Wednesday, 28 January, 2015 - 14:11

Yes that's correct. The Licensing agreement for all the software on the cloud belongs to the provider not the end user.

Reply by Allen Shubin from HostUs on Wednesday, 28 January, 2015 - 14:17

Hi! Microsoft allows donated software to be run on its own physical server, but not in an environment where there are mixed types of licencing. Typically, a cloud provider would use a SPLA licence, and every Microsoft product on that server would have to be sold under SPLA as well. Some cloud providers may work like we do, and have a separate physical blade for each of our not-for-profit organizations. This means you get both the benefits of a cloud environment and the cost savings of the Donortec licencing. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll try to help out! Kind Regards, Allen Shubin HostUs Pty Ltd allen.shubin@hostus.net.au

Reply by Bianca Wirth from Wirth Consulting Pty Ltd on Wednesday, 28 January, 2015 - 19:22

Hi, as one of the other answers alluded to, the service provider *can* own the licenses however it actually depends on three factors: 1. The vendor 2. the cloud provider and their own business structure; and 3. the agreement the cloud provider has with Microsoft (or any vendor). For example, if you deploy on an IAAS (infrastructure as a service) provider like AWS (Amazon Web Services), and you deploy 'x' number of Microsoft servers, the hourly cost of their server includes the Microsoft license cost - because that is what AWS has agreed with Microsoft. You can't deduct that cost from the standard hourly server rate or bring your own license - it is what it is. However I'd also like to point out that for other software, they are many scenarios where you can BYOL (bring your own license) - for example, say you're migrating your on premise Splunk instance (a logging & monitoring tool) to a cloud based service - AWS has no such agreement (restriction) with Splunk so you can take your existing on-premise license and bring it to the cloud. In this instance it actually comes down to identifying the software vendor's policy on licensing in cloud environments - they all differ so you just need to be sure to read the fine print before signing up. You'll often find that the base OS is the non-negotiable license inclusion while the application sitting on top is more susceptible to flexible BYOL arrangements (or not at all as the case may be sometimes!). All cloud providers should have public policies and/or terms of service that outline how they deal with licensing e.g. charges, usage etc so you know what you have to pay for and what you're getting included. Hope that helps, Cheers, Bianca

Reply by David Sia from Techware on Wednesday, 28 January, 2015 - 22:23

It depends on the cloud environment. We have been providing our NFP clients hosted cloud services on dedicated hardware. Kind Regards, David from Techware

Reply by David Sia from Techware on Wednesday, 28 January, 2015 - 22:25

In other words, you can use Connecting Up license on the cloud but it must meet a technical requirement