SQL 2005 Standard Licensing and clustering

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Dragon - 21 Mar 2008 17:23 GMT

Hi,

If I purchase a single proc license for SQl 2005 Standard, can I use that on
a 2-node failover cluster witout any additional licensing?

If yes, could you please point me to some MS link?

Thanks.

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Geoff N. Hiten - 21 Mar 2008 17:34 GMT

Any time SQL is set up in a failover situation where the "passive" system is
unused for anything except as a standby, then you do not have to purchase
additional licensing for that standby system.

Passive Servers and Failover Support
http://www.microsoft.com/sql/howtobuy/activepassive.mspx

Signature

Geoff N. Hiten
Senior SQL Infrastructure Consultant
Microsoft SQL Server MVP

> Hi,
>
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
>
> Thanks.

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Dragon - 21 Mar 2008 17:50 GMT

Thank you. Geoff.

> Any time SQL is set up in a failover situation where the "passive" system
> is unused for anything except as a standby, then you do not have to
[quoted text clipped - 11 lines]
>>
>> Thanks.

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Ekrem Önsoy - 22 Mar 2008 17:57 GMT

Although it says on the article that Geoff given its link, I wanted to
stress that it should not exceed 30 days to use the passive node as the new
active node. Otherwise you'll need to buy another license for the
"old-passive"\"new active" node.

Signature

Ekrem Önsoy

> Thank you. Geoff.
>
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>>>
>>> Thanks.

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Dragon - 24 Mar 2008 17:11 GMT

Thank you Ekrem.

It seems a bit silly that MS would do that when in most cases hardware is
identical in both nodes and once failover has occured, there isn't a real
way to tell (not that I know of one) which one is the original "Active
Node".

> Although it says on the article that Geoff given its link, I wanted to
> stress that it should not exceed 30 days to use the passive node as the
[quoted text clipped - 18 lines]
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.

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Geoff N. Hiten - 24 Mar 2008 18:24 GMT

Technically, you decommission the primary system and reassign the licenses
to the failover system. It is more of an accounting issue than having to
actually purchase licenses, assuming you don't have OEM versions tied to
specific hardware..

Signature

Geoff N. Hiten
Senior SQL Infrastructure Consultant
Microsoft SQL Server MVP

> Thank you Ekrem.
>
[quoted text clipped - 25 lines]
>>>>>
>>>>> Thanks.

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