How much does a Terminal Service CAL cost?

[Passions]

Wanna set up Terminal services for Win2k server, but it seems I need CAL license? How much do those cost, cuz I wanna test it out b4 I tell my boss to get em. Thanks!

 

[bozo1]

Are you just doing it for remote admin? If so, you do not need a CAL, just enable Terminal services in administration mode. If it is for users to run apps off the server, W2K Pro workstations do not need Terminal Services CALs but all other clients do.

If you are doing this for users to run apps off the server, here's the scoop:

All workstations need W2K Server CALs.
All workstations need Terminal Services CALs also except W2K Professional clients.

Terminal Services CALs run around $80, a little less if you have a MS Select or Open Licensing agreement with Microsoft.

 

[DAM]

Check these nice articles from Livingston over at infoworld:



Text



and


Text


dam()

 

[DaHitman]

We have a large 5000+ TS environment at my company, and from what I remember... The terminal server client cost is the exact same price per client as buying a regular Windows NT client.... THATS not where the savings are from...its from support costs, hardware etc..

Some people think Microsoft priced it this way on purpose to keep Terminal Server from being "too attractive" compared to their normal OS licenses.

 

[Passions]

wow cool, I don't need to run apps off server, just remote admin. great!

 

[bozo1]

Cool - just install it and it'll ask you what mode you want to install it in. Off ya go!

 

[bozo1]

<< Some people think Microsoft priced it this way on purpose to keep Terminal Server from being "too attractive" compared to their normal OS licenses. >>


I'm sure it was a ploy to get people to upgrade. It does get spendy especially when you add MetaFrame on top of that, but in the long run it's well worth it for some organizations. We have hundreds of P5-133 machines that all the people do is access Email and SAP and not much more. We were looking at having to upgrade at least the RAM in all of these machines to support the latest SAP release - old EDO memory is EXPENSIVE these days. Why spend the money to upgrade these machines when we can throw whatever we want on a WTS server?