Amazon has launched an initiative for Microsoft customers to bring their Windows Server licenses to Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) platform.
Amazon has launched an initiative for Microsoft customers to bring
their Windows Server licenses to Amazon's Elastic Compute Cloud
platform.
Amazon's effort is in conjunction with a new Microsoft pilot program
that enables Windows Server customers with an Enterprise Agreement (EA)
with Microsoft to bring their licenses to Amazon EC2 and pay Amazon's
Linux On-Demand or Reserved Instance rates, said Peter DeSantis,
general manager of EC2 at Amazon. That translates to a savings of
between 35 percent and 50 percent, depending on the type of customer
and instance, he said
In an interview with eWEEK, DeSantis said Amazon customers have
sought support for Windows Server and Amazon has delivered support for
both Windows Server 2003 and more recently Windows Server 2008.
However, larger customers with EA agreements with Microsoft wanted to
know if those agreements could be applied to EC2 instances. This new
pilot program makes that possible.
Amazon announced the effort on March 24 and immediately began
enrolling customers. Enrollment will continue through September 15,
2010, DeSantis said.
In a notice sent out to announce the program, Amazon said to
participate in the pilot, Microsoft requires that your company meets
the following criteria:
??Ã Your company must be based (or have a legal entity) in the United States.
??Ã Your company must
have an existing Microsoft Enterprise Agreement that does not expire
within 12 months of your entry into the Pilot.
??Ã You must already
have purchased Software Assurance from Microsoft for your EA Windows
Server licenses.
??Ã You must be an
Enterprise customer (Academic and Government institutions are not
covered by this pilot).
Meanwhile, according to Amazon, some of the fine print for the project reads:
"Once enrolled, you can move your Enterprise Agreement Windows
Server Standard, Windows Server Enterprise, or Windows Server
Datacenter Edition licenses to Amazon EC2 for 1 year. Each of your
Windows Server Standard licenses will let you launch one EC2 instance.
Each of your Windows Server Enterprise or Windows Server Datacenter
licenses will let you launch up to four EC2 instances. In either case,
you can use any of the EC2 instance types. The licenses you bring to
EC2 can only be moved between EC2 and your on-premises machines every
90 days. You can use your licenses in the US East (Northern Virginia)
or US West (Northern California) Regions. You will still be responsible
for maintaining your Client Access Licenses and External Connector
licenses appropriately."
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