Server Licences

[Simon Wright]

Thought i'd share the answer i got to some questions i asked about the server licences...

------

What happens with currently activated/licenced servers?
A: They will stop working once licenses have fully dropped off from the contract.

Do we now have to get new licences for these?
A: If you still need to run Windows Server and want to continue using the same environment then yes, you will have to buy more licenses right before expiration otherwise there will be downtime in production.

Are the current and past server activation keys going to be invalid/unusable or will still be able to be used?
A: The keys along with the contract will expire. Expired keys cannot be used.

What are the costs going to be for a Windows server licence? Are they perpetual or subscription?
A: Windows Server Licenses are based off the physical cores per host along with how many VMs you want to run on each host.
Pricing for minimum of 16 Cores is $93.85 for 1 year + GST.

Perpetual licenses with MS are purchased through other licensing methods. Pricing will be different depending on the license.

--------

I was told they (Cyclone) were putting together a pdf to cover the details, this is yet to be released as they have a meeting with the MoE today to discuss the changes for next year.

I dont know whats been sent to schools and MSPs currently (if anything) as could have a lot of schools scrambling with server licencing issues coem start of next year.

Simon.

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[d.keen...@gc.ac.nz]

PBTech have quite good education pricing on perpetual + core licenses, so it's well worth checking with them as to what you need; especially in the case of KAMAR.

If you're moving to different platforms altogether, Samba AD 4 and TrueNAS make a potent combination.

If you are into heavy containerization and Virtualisation, then Proxmox is the go-to this end.

I back things like DNS Proxies, NTP and DHCP in containers under Proxmox.

As an aside, you can configure Samba AD 4 and its inbuilt DNS using the normal windows AD/DNS/Group Policy server configuration tools (RSAT).

Even the CUPS system (backing paperCut) can be configured using the printer management tools.

Regards,

David Keenleyside, BSc CS & IS, CTech

ITP Associate

EFF Member

ICT Technician

Glenfield College

PO Box 40176 (Kaipatiki Rd)

Glenfield, Auckland City 0629

Ph:       +64 9 444 9066 ext 677

DDI: +64 9 441 9779

Email:    d.keen...@gc.ac.nz

https://itp.nz/CTech/NZ160799

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-keenleyside-626871/

The Three O’s of Backup: Online, Offline, Off-site.

The Three RA’s of Cloud: Run Anywhere, Run Anytime, Run Agnostic.

“When you're working as part of a team, one of the things to expect is that you should share information freely with your colleagues and that they'll share information freely with you.” - Google

[Sue Way]

Thanks Simon for posting the answers to questions many of us will be asking.

I am trying to not think about it at the moment as I fear it's going to be a bit of a nightmare for many, including us, who have a good amount of MS server infrastructure including hosting our own websites (mainly Linux Phew)

I've over budgeted to make sure.

Regards

Sue Way | IT Services Director (she, her)

Te Kura Manawaroa o Pipitea | Wellington Girls' College

Pipitea Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011  

[William Hamilton]

Thanks Simon, this is great to have highlighted. It was interesting to read that the key would expire at the end of the contract, I only have one of my school's which still has a Windows server inhouse, which will transition out very soon.

W

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[Simon Wright]

I've actually just put the question forward again as I think the answer was predicated on the activation being by KMS as opposed to activated using a MAK key.

I don't believe if the MAK keys were revoked, it would change the currently activated servers. Only new activations wouldn't work (once the key is revoked).

Regards,

Simon Wright

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/CAAjujsrPCah3tXawDa4px9ScOZyapOMLjup%2BzGno%2B94zkyPDTQ%40mail.gmail.com.

[Dave Diprose]

Thanks Simon,

In my experience, regarding the information from Cyclone and the ministry that the licensing is meant to just “stop working”. The keys we are using are Volume Licensing keys are as such are meant to be perpetual… so by design they don’t expire and should not “tied” to a contract that constantly needs renewing…

A Cyclone tech told me the servers will keep working and that the problem will be if MS audit your licensing, because the contract is no longer valid then the license will no longer be valid.

We are waiting for pricing, our Tech partner hasn’t or can’t check general enterprise licensing for a worst-case scenario. Will be checking with PB Tech.

Cheers

Dave

[Simon Wright]

Indeed, that was my understanding..

Response i just got....

The MAK Keys will still continue to work PERPETUALLY but you will be considered out of compliance and you will lose access to updates and support.

Regards,

Simon Wright

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/9f6fa95a-37d6-4c63-aa84-4f303a2d79fdn%40googlegroups.com.

[d.keen...@gc.ac.nz]

Keep in mind there's also another insidious problem.  If you register your KMS keys in Active Directory, then the activation of such keys occurs once, and every device joining the directory sees the key and authenticates against that key in the directory.

It does not matter what type of Active Directory this is, they also work in SAMBA AD4; so you can register your Windows 11/Office/other KMS keys if you are going down that route.

The above means that even if your license has expired, you may be installing Operating Systems and Software to which you no longer have the rights, but it'll activate anyway; this is assuming you are using GVLK keys in your client deployments.

So, be prepared to do some tidying with your volume license activation tools before the cutoff.

Regards,

David Keenleyside, BSc CS & IS, CTech

ITP Associate

EFF Member

ICT Technician

Glenfield College

PO Box 40176 (Kaipatiki Rd)

Glenfield, Auckland City 0629

Ph:       +64 9 444 9066 ext 677

DDI: +64 9 441 9779

Email:    d.keen...@gc.ac.nz

https://itp.nz/CTech/NZ160799

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-keenleyside-626871/

The Three O’s of Backup: Online, Offline, Off-site.

The Three RA’s of Cloud: Run Anywhere, Run Anytime, Run Agnostic.

“When you're working as part of a team, one of the things to expect is that you should share information freely with your colleagues and that they'll share information freely with you.” - Google

[Sam McNeill]

<Putting my old MSFT hat back on for a bit>.... 

the latter comments in this thread are correct and this is ultimately going to be a matter of compliance (which is really important btw) and MSFT's primary approach on MAK etc is to put the responsibility squarely on the end user customer to remain (and prove) their compliance.

This can be particlarly hard on various licenses that due to some 'interesting' MSFT architecture, can activate across an entire tenant for all users, even when you've only added a single license. It remains the organisations' responsiblity to remain compliant and for users not to incorrectly use funcationality/features made available by that license(s).

This throws me back to when I was still working in schools and realised we had installed SQL server licensing via VLSC which we were not compliantly allowed to use ... just because it was 'there' did not mean it was in our licenses.

Net/net - I suspect these server licenses will not simply 'stop' at the end of the agreement but individual schools will need to take compliance seriously and make provision for purchasing new licenses or migrating off Windows Server.

</removing MSFT hat>

[Dave Diprose]

Thanks Simon.

Here is my past experience and information that I got from Cyclone. 

I’m not sure how the licensing is meant to just “stop working”. The keys we are using are Volume Licensing keys are as such are meant to be perpetual… so by design they don’t expire and should not tied to a contract that constantly needs renewing…

However, a Cyclone tech told me the servers will keep working. The problem will be if MS audit your licensing, because the contract is no longer valid then the license will no longer be valid.

Waiting for pricing, our Tech partner hasn’t or can’t check general enterprise licensing for a worst-case scenario.

LOL, I’d like how many schools said “sweet as we don’t need on site servers” that the ministry felt it was a good idea to get rid of the licensing and what size they are. Although I feel it’s more likely that High Schools and some bigger Intermediates most likely require onsite servers.

[Dion McGovern-Allen]

Its an interesting direction to take, since cloud is just someone else's server.

It sounds nice to replace capital expenditure on servers / NASes and personnel to manage it.

Yet you still need some infrastructure.
Frivolous spending aside, it should be fit for purpose and there are still merits to having something onsite!
Especially in larger schools like high school, area and combined schools!

Security camera systems come to mind, the little NVRs are all fine on a small scale but sometimes you want a bigger system like NXWitness or Milestone.
Then you can have AI accelerator cards and image recognition to alleviate scrubbing of footage.
We have around 90 cameras here and try to have three weeks retention minimum (for school holidays)

Microsoft and Google make no guarantees as to your data being stored in their system.
Just that they will do their best to keep it.
So you end up needing a backup system for 365/GDrive - if not for ensuring a disgruntled staff member doesn't wreck the shop or ransomware mitigation!

I wonder if they will look to drop desktop Windows licensing too at some point.
Since HP Elitebooks come with the pro version of Windows licensed to the machine from factory.
Which can be managed with Microsoft Intune or Google Workspace.

Education editions of Windows from memory merely strip out some of the start menu bloat.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

<Waiting for pricing, our Tech partner hasn’t or can’t check general enterprise licensing for a worst-case scenario>

Rough pricing I believe is around $5.22 per core license for standard Windows server. (subject to change)
Then you have to work out based on licensing requirements - Physical or Virtual licensing.

Physical - licenses the host with Windows (HyperV) - you only pay for the real core count on each processor and the minimum amount is 8 per processor.
Which allows you to put two virtual machines on the host (Server Standard) and if you want more then you have to buy another set of licenses to cover the number of VMs. (Called License Stacking)
eg lets say I have a server with 2 physical processors and they have 10 cores each, I want to run 5 virtual machines on the server.
You do not need to include the host OS if its only used to run HyperV to manage the virtual machines.
2x 10 = 20 core licenses for 2 VMs and I need to cover 3 more.
20x2 = 40 core licenses for a total of 60.

60x 5.22 = $313.20 +GST

I now have room to run an additional Windows VM in future should I wish (1 spare entitlement)

Virtual CPU licensing is the other way - you license the number of virtual cores per VM.
They have a minimum requirement of 8 per machine.
eg lets say  I have a non Windows virtual machine host like VMware or Proxmox and 4 Windows Server VMs.
I have given 3 of them 4 virtual processors each and 1 machine 12.

(3x 8) + (1x 12) = 36 core licenses

36x 5.22 = $187.92 +GST

The only other thing is that you buy in packs of 16 or 2.

*Disclaimer*
I believe this is how the licensing works as per Microsoft's licensing guide but I could be mistaken.
The costs above were current as of Nov last year and will have changed.
The per core cost was just the 16 pack cost averaged out.
You'll need to reach out via email to nzsc...@cyclone.co.nz for current pricing.
So at best, the above can be used to help estimate the cost for your environment.

[Matt Strickland]

I asked Cyclone back in April but there wasn't anything concrete then. There was this however:

"licensing is based on the cores in the physical server, not what is assigned to virtual guests"

I assume that applies to the Physical licencing, paying real core count with 2 additional VMs.

But yes I had thought they might consider dropping the Windows OS licences in the future, assuming most of us purchase devices that are at least Pro or higher.

A different topic previously discussed but are many schools here using both Google and M365?

And do you plan to drop one entirely if so?

Matt

[Simon Wright]

Both Google and M365, no plans to drop one, can't really, don't even want to entertain that idea.

Simon.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/430ca597-14d9-4d79-a4fa-b8fc70d4bf4an%40googlegroups.com.

[Jonathan Churton]

Same as above. M365/Entra for Authentication, Google as our primary Suite.

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/CAEJps9qsJhihZfR4UZ%3Dn55Hwm9SacYho9FmuOqgqnCV30Qztgw%40mail.gmail.com.

--

Jonathan Churton

Senior ICT Systems Engineer

Lighting and Sound Engineer

Wellington High School

Work: 02825508921 or Ext 887

[d.keen...@gc.ac.nz]

Just regarding the licences for virtual machine cores, that's a European Union thing, after there was a bust-up in the courts over competition and monopoly powers in the cloud computing space:

https://www.crn.com/news/cloud/microsoft-to-make-licensing-changes-to-quell-europe-controversy

There is also ongoing action this year surrounding a variety of related topics: https://licenseware.io/microsofts-new-european-cloud-commitments-a-turning-point-for-licensing-and-digital-sovereignty/

Now, as for the entire Google vs Microsoft issue, if we had to choose M365 or Google Workspace... we'd choose Google Workspace, as we can replicate the important bits of M365 functionality, and we couldn't afford the M365 licensing.

Regards,

David Keenleyside, BSc CS & IS, CTech

ITP Associate

EFF Member

ICT Technician

Glenfield College

PO Box 40176 (Kaipatiki Rd)

Glenfield, Auckland City 0629

Ph:       +64 9 444 9066 ext 677

DDI: +64 9 441 9779

Email:    d.keen...@gc.ac.nz

https://itp.nz/CTech/NZ160799

https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-keenleyside-626871/

The Three O’s of Backup: Online, Offline, Off-site.

The Three RA’s of Cloud: Run Anywhere, Run Anytime, Run Agnostic.

“When you're working as part of a team, one of the things to expect is that you should share information freely with your colleagues and that they'll share information freely with you.” - Google

[Sue Way]

HI Simon,

We are a hybrid mix of both MS365 and Google and can't unbundle so will be purchasing the Google, as it is less expensive, and getting MS 365 from the MoE.

The MoEs advice is to use E5 licences for teaching staff and E1 for support staff.. They really have no idea that many support staff are velcroed to their computer so need a E5 licence.

I am guessing we are going to have to do some wrangling with the MoE about numbers of licences at some stage.

It would be nice to have a definitive answer from them.

Sue Way | IT Services Director (she, her)

Te Kura Manawaroa o Pipitea | Wellington Girls' College

Pipitea Street, Thorndon, Wellington 6011  

[Simon Wright]

I may have missed something along the way, i know there has been chatter about choosing one or the other, but nothing has been set in stone as of yet right?

Were you meaning A1 not E1? i haven't seen anything about E1. Yes, the amount of support staff we have these days, i don't have enough E5 license as they still need Office.

Simon.

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[Sue Way]

HI Simon

Yes you're right it is A1 sorry got the wrong letter of the alphabet.

I hope they are still deciding.

Sue

[Sue Way]

now almost totally off topic but....

Got a nice wee popup when logging into Google Drive today :Copy your Organisations files from Microsoft OneDrive to Google Drive today.

Nice to see providers making it easy to migrate. Might make some schools decision easier.

Sue

[Danielle Vandendungen - MoE]

Hi all,
For anyone that missed it we sent our Digital Download newsletter last week, which had a couple of points on licencing. In the longer term (no due date yet) we are encouraging schools to adopt either Microsoft or Google platforms to reduce costs. We're still gathering information about how schools use these platforms.
Digital Download · 30 July 2025 - Ministry of Education

If you aren't yet subscribed, you can at:
Subscribe to Digital Download

Danielle

[Marlon Yu]

Hi Danielle,

 

Can we get clarity on who the MoE considers as “office administration staff” (entitled to A3/A5) as opposed to “support staff” (entitled only to A1)?

 

Marlon

 

From: 'Danielle Vandendungen - MoE' via Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 1:46 PM
To: Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [techies-for-schools] Server Licences

 

CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Rangitoto College. Be careful about clicking on links or opening attachments. If in doubt, ask IT.

 

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[Dave Diprose]

Cyclone reached out when they saw my post and I now have pricing and clarification over what the M365 covers for onsite CALs and laptop licensing to Windows Education. Basically will cost us around $2100 for a faculty of 300 and student body of 2900. This is a small addition to the hardware we need to purchase. The SQL license is over half of that. 

[te...@whs.ac.nz]

Office 365 and Google here as well, with onsite servers.

Most of our students rely on google classroom, but all the backend stuff is through microsoft, so it will be a dark day when someone says pick one or the other...

Really not sure how they came up with the decision to defund these - many decisions around purchases and network/infra setup were made around existing agreements, to simply cut them off does not realistically mean those setupds can be changed easily. I suppose we will just end up paying.

Was there ever a release of information about the surveys they did on this? Is it possible to obtain?

On Monday, August 4, 2025 at 3:20:27 PM UTC+12 C...@whs.school.nz wrote:

[Danielle Vandendungen - MoE]

Hi Marlon,

We consider “office administration staff” (entitled to A3/A5) are the office admin staff running the office and school. "Support staff" (entitled to A1) are grounds staff/ caretakers, cleaners and canteen staff.

Hope this helps

Danielle

[Danielle Vandendungen - MoE]

Hi - for some reason my message was deleted.
The Ministry considers “office administration staff” (entitled to A3/A5) as office admin staff running the office and school. "Support staff" (entitled to A1) are the 'grounds staff/ caretakers, cleaners and canteen staff.

Hope this helps,

Danielle

On Tuesday, August 5, 2025 at 1:54:32 PM UTC+12 marl...@rangitoto.school.nz wrote:

[Paul Seiler]

Danielle, I don't believe that your message was deleted, but it might have been held pending approval. While I don't know the criteria for this selection, those of us who are admins can release messages and check every couple of days. Sorry.

Paul.

[Jeffrey B]

Hi Danielle, what about the large number of teacher Aides and job sharing teachers we have?  The provided definition seems to exclude this group which are generally heavy users of desktop Office apps.

This is just going to result in a growing mess of licencing that the original agreements were brought in to solve. 

What about shared student devices imaged with Windows EDU activated by KMS, will we have to reimage the lot down to whatever the devices bundled with for m365 licensing to bounce back to edu per user?  Surely if still actively licensed MS should not care about the method of activation.

Jeffrey.

---

From: 'Danielle Vandendungen - MoE' via Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, August 5, 2025 5:34:14 pm

To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/96fb163a-1450-4c8d-bb16-a4ab47657f14n%40googlegroups.com.

[Pete Mundy]

Ooo! Any chance the list lurker from Cyclone could get someone to look at ticket number 1257820 for me?

I've been trying to get an answer on license entitlements for approx 3 weeks. Have followed up a couple of times but am just being stonewalled - no answer :(

Pete

[Sue Way]

Nice one Pete,

I think we are all going to be in the same boat with licencing.

Cyclone maybe you could put a post up or email us and let us all know  what costs will be involved.

Even send out a survey form so you don't get hammered by us all asking the same question.

Sue Way

[Pete Mundy]

Often the direct-contacts on this list can be quite effective! Someone from Cyclone was kind enough to reach out to me off-list this morning offering help :)

But for what it's worth, my query was about different products than the main thread (I need to confirm O365 A5 entitlements, not server licensing).

Pete

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[Paul Stephen]

Cyclone is the designated Microsoft licensing partner for the Ministry of Education. As such, Cyclone needs to ensure that any information communicated to schools and MSP aligns with Ministry guidance and expectations.

Cyclone is actively collaborating with the Ministry regarding the messaging relating to Microsoft Service Licensing, along with how this information is to be shared. We will provide an update as soon as possible.

Important: Licensing costs can not be disclosed in public forums as these costs are included in the Microsoft agreement and remain confidential between the Ministry, Cyclone, and schools (where applicable).

Paul Stephen
Cyclone

[Danielle Vandendungen - MoE]

Hi Jeffrey,
By the definition, I take it to mean they are included - I think the info is based off Ed Payroll data if that helps.

To get specific information for your school I recommend you email nzsc...@cyclone.co.nz to see who is included.

@Paul Seiler - thanks the messages are now showing. Yesterday it had a message saying the post was deleted which was confusing!

Ngā mihi

Danielle

[Danielle Vandendungen - MoE]

Arohamai, my apologies I've found out they're not included. I should've double checked before replying.

If you check with the nz schools @ cyclone .co.nz address they'll be able to tell you who is eligible at your school.

[Matt Strickland]

"Really not sure how they came up with the decision to defund these"

Obviously the pressure is on to save money sector wide wherever they can. We see the drop in Server licences, the extension to 4 year leases for Tela, and the *hint* to choose only one cloud provider. 

From a licence perspective it makes sense - there's no point having two cloud vendor packages assigned to a user when they mostly/only use one, in particular the productivity apps, Teams/Classroom, Word/Docs, OneDrive/Drive etc. But the blending of IdP/MFA & MDM/Policy between those vendors is hard to separate (and separately licence for?)

I do think that this stage there will be monitoring first of who's asking for what quantities of licences on either side or both, if usage or waste can be monitored from that and perhaps a bit more pressure 2027 onwards. 

[Craig Knights]

There will also have to be some tough conversations inside schools.
Minecraft in a Google school is one that comes to mind. We were a
Google place primarily, but then had to license users for Minecraft
EDU with a Microsoft 365 setup. If we had had to choose one or the
other how would that have gone?

Sometimes there were good reasons for us to choose say Google Meet for
online classes during COVID, but oh no the noisiest staff insisted on
mandating Zoom, even though the promised 45min cap removal never
seemed to quite be lifted correctly and scheduling it for the classes
already defined in Google became painful.

If you have to choose one or the other, there may be some unintended
consequences.

Craig


On Thu, Aug 7, 2025 at 6:41 PM 'Matt Strickland' via Techies for

> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/techies-for-schools/db48a12c-159a-4838-b66a-8a126c9d9853n%40googlegroups.com.

[Brian Foster]

Had some info from Cyclone recently, due to impending upgrades to our Hosts that we will also be migrating from VMware to Proxmox:

 

Windows Server Datacentre can be licensed Per Core, and you can run unlimited Windows Servers on a Host (running VMware, KVM etc.) that you have licensed for the number of Cores on the Host server.

 

E.G. we’re looking at a cluster of 1U, AMD EPYC Host servers with a single 24-Core CPU, which means we can purchase 24-Cores of Windows Server DC licenses for each Host, and run as many Windows Servers as we want on that Host, regardless of which Hypervisor we’re running on it, all that matters is that we match the Core Licenses with the number of Physical Cores on the Host Server.

 

Indicative, but not guaranteed, 2026 pricing from Cyclone:

Windows Server DC 16 Core License Pack = $596.34
Windows Server DC 2 Core License Pack = $74.53

For 24 Windows Server DC the indicative price will be $894.46  (= 1 x 16-Core + 4 x 2-Core)
For 32 Windows Server DC Core Licenses, the indicative price will be $1,192.68  (= 2 x 16-Core)

 

As we’re looking at 24-Core Hosts, we’ll be budgeting for (at least) $900 / Host server to meet the MS licensing requirements.

 

Hopefully that helps you all for your 2026 Windows Server Licensing budget.

 

Brian

 

From: 'Matt Strickland' via Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Monday, 4 August 2025 2:56 pm
To: Techies for schools <techies-f...@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: [techies-for-schools] Server Licences

 

I asked Cyclone back in April but there wasn't anything concrete then. There was this however: