RDS CAL question

[Cindex]

Just a quick questions for some of you geniuses out there.  I know it might seem silly to some, but I can't seem to find any concrete info.  If I buy a 50 User RDS CAL pack, can I use, say, 10 on one server and 40 in another?  Does this still apply if the servers are not in the same physical location?

 

Thanks in advance.

[NelizMastr]

Well, for starters, you don't activate licenses on different servers. If you have a single RDS environment, you activate the CALs on the License Server. How many session hosts you have isn't important after that. As many CALs will be used as needed.

[Jay Deah]

Yes you can use them anywhere you want. License terms are separate from the activation stuff. Microsoft only care that you own licenses they don’t active them properly. Every RDs deployment needs a license server running. If you want multiple RDs farms to share anlicnese server then they’re needs to be a 2 way trust between domains otherwise you need to deploy a license server each.

 

whenever you install RDs license server you are prompted to enter your license agreement number and then it checks to see if it’s calid. It then asks you how many cALs you want to add and you type it in freehand. If you own 5 and type in 5000 it still works.