Openfire on Server 2012 / User Cals needed?

Good morning to all,

I would like to migrate my Openfire Installation from a Ubuntu System to WIN2012 Server. Maybe what I am asking sounds stupid, but do I need to buy Microsoft USER CAL Licences for all the registered User in my Openfire, so they are allowed to communicate with the WIN Server? Would be pretty expensive I guess… :slight_smile:

Thanks for your help in advance…

Cheers

Hi

I think maybe this will help:

https://blogs.technet.microsoft.com/volume-licensing/2014/03/10/licensing-how-to -when-do-i-need-a-client-access-license-cal/

My understanding is, if you deploy a software on the Win Server that requires an “Internal” connection [LAN Clients] to connect to the Win Server, that requires a CALs. or Maybe I’m wrong or lack of info re: CALs

Hi Matt,

thanks for the link. Personally I find it pretty confusing. Since Openfire is like a “Web Service”, I thought User Cals are not needed. What happens if I would like to install Openfire on a WIN10 VM? I would get rid of that CAL problem, wouldn´t I??

To install desktop Windows version as VM, you have to have Enterprise license afaik, and this needs subscription, which is expensive also. I think you should clarify with MS support, but i wouldn’t classify Openfire as web service. Even SharePoint requires CALs and it’s a web based service.

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Hi wroot, I asked a MS guy and he told me to use CALs since Openfire is not a web application in general. So my conclusion now is: “Good bye WIN2012, hello again UBUNTU…” :slight_smile:

thanks for your help…

If you already have deployed a server 2012 in your environment, than you should already have purchased user cals for it. You don’t have to repurchase cals if you add more servers.

Right. And CALs purchased for 2012 also apply for 2012 R2.

I am using a win2012 trial version, since I wanted to check wether openfire is running flawlessy or not. So I didn´t order any CALs so far. About 200 users are running their Spark clients with my current Ubuntu environment. Purchasing CALs for all of them might be a bit expensive…

if you really want to run on windows, you could always use a server version that you already have cals for. ie 2008r2

I’ve had Openfire running on Server 2012 R2 for about 11 months now. I didn’t need to purchase any CALs for it. I have it running Internally only with no outside access. Runs flawlessly(once you figure out how to set it up as the docs are rather vague, especially on the LDAP side of things).

CALs don’t have any control mechanism. The server won’t ask to install/activate them or anything. It’s only on paper. But you MUST purchase them if users connect to your server (no matter if it’s an internal server). If authorities check your site you can be fined for not having CALs.

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By the way, Microsoft includes 5 CALs for every OEM Windows Server. Then the rest mus be purchased if more than 5 users connecting to the server.

hey folks, finally I decided to cancel my win2k12 server project. Its just too expensive to buy as many CALs as I do need for all the users running on my OF server. Nevertheless thanks for all the comments and hints…