VECD, the only thing you need to know for desktop virtualisation licensing

14 September 2009
By James Mackie

With desktop virtualisation estimated to be present on more than half of the worlds computers, Microsoft have enforced a license to allow users to view desktops in a virtual environment.  VECD or Virtualised Enterprise Centralised Desktop license enables users to view client Microsoft Windows operating systems in a virtual environment.  The license stipulates that every end point device connecting to a virtual desktop must have a VECD license.  Microsoft have recently reduced the annual VECD cost to $23 per fat client and $110 per thin client.

The licensing has certain requirements which must be met in order to qualify for VECD.  The most notable being that each company who registers for VECD must have both Volume Licensing and Software Assurance with Microsoft.  With these pre-requisites in place, companies can signup for VECD and implement in one of two ways:

• Implement VDI internally.  Many larger organisations are training staff in the key VDI products and implementing virtualisation throughout their organisation.  Although there is an associated setup cost, this option tends to give companies the flexibility to build their virtual infrastructure from the ground up.

• Outsource VDI.  Other organisations are outsourcing their VDI to third party ISP/V's.  This removes the initial cost to setup VDI but still requires assessment of the individual business and ongoing support and maintenance.  In terms of VDI, the client who has the Volume Licensing and Software Assurance must purchase the VECD licenses themselves, moreover the physical servers in the datacentre hosted by the service provider must only contain the clients of whom the VECD licensing belongs and no other clients can be located on that same physical server.

Many smaller companies who do not have Volume Licensing or Software Assurance and would like to implement VDI are considering Volume Licensing.  Outside of this bracket certain virtualisation technologies allow you to publish server Microsoft Windows operating systems and split the processes between individual users.  Programs such as Microsoft Terminal Services allow users to logon to server operating systems and run applications much as they would using traditional VDI, only that any one company would have their own virtual machine rather than individual users.  This option seems fairly common place in the ISP/V space as end users do not require VECD but can still offer virtual hosted desktops.

The key point to remember is that streaming a client OS without VECD is violating Microsoft licensing terms, but streaming a server OS is allowed as long as the relevant Windows and Terminal Services licenses are present.  For ISV's this type of agreement is usually implemented on a SPLA agreement allowing the vendor to pay per maximum concurrent user per month for each license required.

It seems quite clear that desktop virtualisation cannot be ignored, Brian Gammage, Gartner's head VP on virtualisation stated last week that "soon virtualisation won't be the buzz word on everyone's lips, just as people now don't talk about the BIOS on their computer.  Soon virtualisation will be built into everything we do without us even knowing it".