If I want to set up a smart client application where I have, let's say, 30 clients accessing SQL Server 2005 on our machine (I know I need 30 licenses).

Does that mean, though, getting your ES license packs as well as the User CALs from Microsoft (60 licenses)?  Thus about $150 per license from them and about $25 per license from you?

And I guess the ES license has to be renewed every year but the User CALs don't?

Thanks

An ES CAL should be purchased for each person who will be accessing the data through the ES server.  Since we do not have a 30 CAL package online, you can contact me or sales through email and we can discuss your needs and see if there is something that we can do so you do not have to go all the way to the 100 CAL package.

These CALs will have to be renewed anually in order to remain active.  This is different than the framework where you can still use the framework once the license has expired.  If you have any further questions, please let me know and I will be more than happy to help any way that I can.

So I need 30 ES CALs and 30 SQL Server CALs.

I guess I would also need 30 Windows Server 2003 User CALs in that scenario? 

Just as a background we have this windows desktop application used by different schools that is written in VFP with a VFP backend. Students can access their account information through the web.  Basically it is an asp web application also with VFP back-end.  On a daily basis the schools just upload and download the tables over FTP with SSL to sync the application data with the web.  

We want to create a new version of the Desktop and Web app using Strataframe.  Data synchronization will become an issue. 

So we were thinking: (option 1) create an administrative smart app that accesses their data on our server through ES.  Then the web application can also access that data.  If a school decides that they don't want to go that route (some want to keep their data on their own server, and synchronize it with the data   on our server for the students to access--don't ask why, I don't get it either), we can set them up on SQL Server Express so they can run the program as a standalone app. The web app would run in a disconnected fashion, needing some kind of synchronization mechanism again through ES.

(option 2) Create the the student side and administrative sides strictly as web apps.   Since the administrator would not log on as anonymous, you still get stuck with the licensing issue.  They would still have to run reports and set up account parameters, and we would still need a way to send the data back to the school so they can update their internal systems. So that would require at a minimum some kind of service running on the desktop that syncs data at specific intervals. So definitely still can't get around the licensing thing.

Any thoughts on which licensing scheme might work best in these situations?  We're talking about 120 administrative users from different schools and then 1000's of students accessing the data through the web.

Thanks for any suggestions. 

Design-wise (I talked this over with Trent and he agrees here), the way you are doing it sounds best. For your student users, a web interface is the way to go. There would be too many deployment issues and everything else trying to get a smart client app pushed out to thousands of students on all types of machines. For the administrative interface, a smart-client app would be best. You'll be able to develop the more complex administrative functions more quickly, and it will offer more robust tools on the end-user's side as well.

Licensing-wise, you'll need 1 ES CAL for each disperate administrative user that is going to be connecting to your database through ES. So if you have 120 administrators that are talking to your server, that's how many ES CALs you'll need. Since the student web portion will be housed completely on your server and therefore won't be communicating to the SQL server through ES, you don't need to worry about them from an ES licensing perspective.  From a SQL server perspective, while it is true the ES will "bundle" the connections so that SQL thinks it is only a single user, you still need 1 SQL CAL for each of those disperate administrative users to stay kosher with Microsoft. You do NOT need to buy a windows server user CAL for each of the administrative users, however. You are communicating through the web (ES), and as such, you don't need the local user CALs.

The synchronization issue doesn't really come into the ES licensing, since the nuts and bolts will be done on the server itself, but I do feel your pain from a design standpoint. That kind of synchronization is never easy to pull off cleanly, so I'd do everything I could to try and sell those schools out of wanting to house their data local. I know that in the real world you can't always keep your customers from insisting on something silly, but we've been down that road many times in our medical application, and avoiding it in the future is one of the main reasons we developed the enterprise server. So here's hoping .

Those answer alone made it worth it to make my boss renew our Strataframe framework license.

I'll take this info and pass it on.  Now at least I got 2 others who got my back.

Marcel

We got around hefty licensing fees (up front anyway) for our web applications by going through a hosting service, they provided us with a processor license for SQL Server for a low monthly number. We tried a shared solution but it didnt work so we has to go with dedicated.

Good luck with your application.

Keith Chisarik

Glad you got the answers you were looking for Marcel, let us know how it goes!