How many licenses do I need from Microsoft RDS?
Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services (RDS) is a Microsoft Windows Server service that allows users to log into their device to access Windows applications. There are different licenses within the Microsoft RDS environment: There is a Microsoft RDS User CAL and Device CAL license. To determine how many licenses, you need within your company, it is useful to know how these licenses work. Are you curious how many licenses you need from Microsoft RDS? Read below how both licenses work.
What is a ‘CAL’ and what are Users and Devices?
CAL stands for the term Client Access License and means that anyone who purchases this license from Microsoft will have access to the Windows Server service with the users or devices he/she has added. A ‘User’ is a user, such as your employee, and a ‘Device’ is a device that is used, such as a smartphone, desktop or tablet. This CAL consists of two types of licenses: the User CAL and Device CAL.
What is a Microsoft RDS User CAL?
A Microsoft RDS User CAL means that you pay per user of the service. Suppose you have an employee who has access to the server via a PC, tablet or smartphone, so you pay for the user who logs in to the server. This can be especially useful for your organization when your employees need to have access to your work environment.
What is a Microsoft RDS Device CAL?
You purchase a Device CAL license per device. This is more beneficial for you if you plan to have multiple employees on one device. So you use the license on one device, regardless of how many users use that device. A Device CAL license may be more useful for companies in the Retail or Hospitality industry. Multiple employees often work on one or more devices, so you do not pay per user, but per device.
How can I combine both licenses?
Suppose you want to give multiple employees access to your environment on multiple devices. Then it is recommended to combine both licenses. What is the best way to do that? First of all, you can see which employees should have access to your environment and put them in a list. It is then best to view per employee which devices they have and whether they also need access to your environment with those devices.
This does require good IT Asset Management from your organization, because you must carefully consider how many licenses you need to purchase per model. After all, you must have sufficient license compliance (enough licenses) from Microsoft.
How many licenses do I need?
To know how many licenses you need for your company, it is useful to take a good inventory of how many devices you want on your RDS environment and how many users you want on your RDS environment. If you do not have a clear overview of this, you may purchase too many or too few licenses. It is also useful to know whether you want to purchase licenses based on devices, users or a combination of both.
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