My client wants to save on software licensing. When you purchase a production SQL Server 2008 R2 license, can you use it on QA as well or do you have to purchase an additional license? If you can’t use the same license on QA, is the Developer Edition approved by Microsoft for QA? Thanks.
My client wants to save on software licensing. When you purchase a production SQL
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It is not a super straight forward answer unfortunately.
If you licensed SQL Server by processor, you can connect use it however you want with no restrictions. If you license it for Server plus Device or User CALs you need to make sure you have enough CALs to cover the client and QA connections. See http://www.microsoft.com/sqlserver/2008/en/us/licensing-faq.aspx#licensing.
The Developer licensed version works great and has all the features of the regular editions. The license is cheap ($50 a person if I recall correctly), but I believe every person making use of the server instance needs a Developer license, so if you have 5 QA people they would each need a SQL Developer license. Of course that is still probably cheaper than licensing you production server for extra use unless you already shelled out to license by processor.