Hi guys, I have a piece of software that will be used remotely on a Windows Server. At the moment there will be 10 users spread over 2 offices, though the company wants to expand to maybe 10 offices over the next year. The sw company says the best set up would be to have a server running the application and a 2nd server running terminal services. The servers I am looking at getting them both have Windows server 2003 with 5 CALs. Do you think I need 2 servers? With the 5 CALs on each server do I need to have terminal services running at all can I not just use the CALs? This is the first time I have worked with window servers, terminal services and the concept of having a license for each user to connect to a server so at the moment I'm a bit overwhelmed I'm doing this as a favour and as a way to gain experience, I generally work with unix/linux based servers. Cheers AB

Microsoft licensing is confusing as hell. When I set up my first Server 2003 domain I tried to figure out what I needed but ended up just calling Dell and asking them. That's what I would do when you buy your servers. They have guys that specialize in that licensing crap and in the end they recommended something called open licensing (I think) that was MUCH cheaper than buying individual CALs. With regard to whether you need one or two servers that STRONGLY depends on what your doing with them. Any decent server should be able to easily handle 10 TS sessions. So it basically comes down to what type of demand the software app will be placing on the server.

You want two DC's as recommended by Microsoft. You want two Terminal servers because you want failover. Depending on the application you very well may want it on a beefy member server. But that is only part of the equation. Your interoffice links need to have the bandwidth to support TS. Licensing isn't that hard when you realize MS makes money on each one you buy. So of course EVERYTHING you want to do will require a license. You need a license per server You need a licence per user or device connecting to the server You need a TS cal for every terminal session. You need a cal for every office product you run. If its a server based app you need a server license and a user cal for every access. See? Pretty easy. Imagine the power if you knew how to internet search

Wanderer - My point is MS offers different TYPES of licenses for most of the categories you listed, and those different types very wildly in price.