Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Licensing Quiz: Who needs a Notes licence?

A customer has 78 names in his Domino Directory.

A. 40 names are people who use Notes within his company eg Fred Smith
B. 20 names are ex-employees whose mail is automatically forwarded to someone in Group A
C. 10 names are forwarding addresses for employees on a MS Exchange server.
D. 5 names are shared jobs with multiple people using the ID depending on the time of day (but only ever one at a time) eg. Receptionist
E. 2 names are dummy IDs used by the developer to test new systems
F. 1 name is a shared job with four people using copies of the same ID concurrently on different computers eg. multiple shipping clerks entering data into a Notes database

So how many licenses does the customer need?
.

16 comments:

Ben Langhinrichs said...

I would say the customer needs 40 (from A) plus one for each person who uses one of the ids in D or F. Sometimes, these will overlap with the names In A, but not always. For example, Suzie Secretary may be listed with a unique id in A, but also use the Receiptionist id, while Roger Receptionist may only use the Receptionist id. In that case, Suzie doesn't needed to be counted twice, but Roger does need to be counted even though he doesn't have a unique id.

Graham Dodge said...

My bad - that point is not clear. Lets presume that there is no overlap in the groups - if you are in Group F then you are not in Group A.

Craig said...

First response: Ah, this is a trick question: IBM doesn't sell licenses to companies smaller than 1000 users. 8-)

Second:
My translation has always boiled down to 'real' people using services. So I'd go with
40 + 10 + 5 + 4 = 59

Mick Moignard said...

Try 76; one for each ID that has a Directory entry. Or maybe it should be 78, one each for the two test IDs as well.

jeremy hodge said...

Well,

The 20 Users in B should removed and proper business processes should be put in place to transition the receipt of any good email from the old addresses, to the proper new addresses, or at very least, the administrator can put the user portion of the email address, ie "first.last" in the corresponding user's person doc in A...eliminating B

Then, the administrator should set up the "Local Internet domain Smart Host" in the configuration settings for the server, essentially formwarding any user that isn't a mail recipient on Domino to the MS Exchange server and get rid of C

I'll get back to D ...

Then the developer needs to set up a separate server and domain for testing purposes and stop screwing over the live environment with his tests, eliminating E (assuming express licensing, otherwise the server cost is probably too costly)

D and F to me anyway are cop-outs on a business level as you should have the ability for each user to be unique in what they do, etc, so go buy them licenses dang it, seriously!!!! :)

So by my count, you need 1 administrator to fix the system, 1 designer to stop screwing around (and their associated licenses as well (ie designer license)), then 40(A) + 5*the number of users(D, seriously!) + 4(F, seriously!!) domino collaboration express licenses, no server licenses required

Kushal said...

As per IBM, a single user needs exactly one CAL that covers the appropriate clients and capabilities he needs, regardless of the number of different IDs he may use or the number of workstations she may use.

http://www-01.ibm.com/software/lotus/notesanddomino/clientlicensing.html

Gavin Bollard said...

It was quite funny trying to get a quote for licensing renewal recently, taking into account our offsite server and the uses to which we're putting it. Then I mentioned that our onsite server has quad cores and thus takes up more licenses.

Believe it or not, I was asked about the age of the processors themselves because apparently not all quad cores are alike and some have higher PVUs than others.

Then... In continued questioning about the offsite server, I was asked about it's processor and cores. I had to reply... "I don't know. I've never seen it". Since it's an enterprise server, to us it's a "service" not a "server".

It's entirely possible that IBM is just making this whole licensing thing too complicated.

Ben Langhinrichs said...

@Gavin - "Entirely possible"? I'd say it is beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Craig said...

My pricing assumption is that you were going for the Domino Express licensing. That's user based.

non-Express licensing is, indeed, PVU based, and I punt it to the salesfolks. It makes my brain hurt.

Mike Brown said...

All of them. That's 78 by my count.

Richard Schwartz said...

I understand it as follows:

- Ex-employees do not connect to a Domino server so they do not require a license.

- Exchange users do not connect to a Domino server, so they do not require a license.

- Test user IDs do not require a license, so long as they are used only by people who hold valid individual user licenses.

- Simultaneous vs non-simultaneous access and the use of multiple computers are both irrelevant to licensing, but any shared ID must only be used by valid licensed users.

Conclusions:

B,C & E do not require licenses.

The number of unique persons comprising the set of users for A, D and F combined is the required number of licenses.

Anonymous said...

ha ha ..everybody has their own answer :-)

This just shows how complex are unclear it is.

Or at least how poorly Licensing terms for Domino and Notes are communicated from IBM

Jesper Kiaer
nevermind.dk

Martin Humpolec said...

Agree with Ben, will count the same amount.

Ben Langhinrichs said...

The disagreements do certainly tend to reinforce the idea that the system is entirely too complex.

Ed Brill said...

wow. The answer given by Kushal is right -- one license per human using Lotus Notes. It's pretty simple actually. It does NOT matter how many names are defined in the Domino directory -- you do not need to pay for dummy directory entries that point to some other mailbox or human or shared ID. But each human who uses a shared ID needs a Notes license.

Did anyone read the FAQ that Kushal linked -- it answers most of these questions. Licensing FAQ

Quiz said...

Try our new Business Quiz and give your opinions on the quiz