What licenses are required for WSS 3.0?

Some times ago I had a need to answer this question. After some googling and investigations I got an idea of what licenses are required for WSS 3.0. I spent some time for the research and decided to share what I’ve found. Let me clear that I’m not an expert in MS products licensing and all information in this post is only my conclusions based on the information found in the MS web sites.

WSS 3.0 is an application platform you are not required to pay for but it conforms to Windows Server licensing model as it said below. If you have a legal Windows Server installed you also can use WSS 3.0. But note that if you use Windows Server Web Edition you have limitations of using only WSS’ front-end part.

Windows SharePoint Services conforms to the Windows Server 2003 licensing model.

The usage of the Windows SharePoint Services on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition, is limited to front-end Web serving tasks. The data storage portion of Windows SharePoint Services may not be installed or used on Windows Server 2003 Web Edition.

Quote from Microsoft source

Microsoft has a license named Client Access License that is required for each user or device that is authenticated from the server. For that purpose Microsoft offers two types of CAL: per user and per device.  CAL is required per each user that is AUTHENTICATED. In the case of anonymous user access you should pay nothing. In the case of using Web Editions of Windows Servers you will be able to safe some licensing fees as far as such a server does not require CAL. [Update 09.02.2009: In addition, do not forget that Windows Server Web Editions has some limitations. You can compare Windows Server 2008 editions' features here or you can compare Windows Server 2003 editions' features here. More information about prices of Windows Server 2008 product line you can find here and the same information for Windows Server 2003 can be found here.

Below is a quote from Windows Server licensing description. ]

Client Access Licensing Requirements

With Windows Server 2003, CALs are no longer triggered based on the use of certain services but are instead based on access to and/or use of the server software. This holds true for all editions of Windows Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 R2, except Web Edition. Windows CALs are not required for Web Edition.

Note the following general exception to Windows CAL requirements: Windows CALs are not required when access to the server software is unauthenticated and conducted through the Internet. Authenticated access is defined as an exchange of user or application credentials between the server software and a user or device. An example of this exception would be if unidentified users browsed your public Web site. Windows CALs would not be required for those users.

Quote from Microsoft source

Another license that you may need is External Connector License. It is required per each Windows Server that is accessed by authenticated users not from your organizations such as partners,  customers, etc. As far as I know such license is not required for external users that are anonymous. Note that ECL is not applicable to Windows Server Web Edition. Below is a quote from ECL description.

The Windows Server 2003 External Connector (EC) license is an optional licensing alternative to address a specific customer scenario.

If you would like to allow your business partners or customers to access your network, you have two licensing options:

• Acquire Windows CALs for each of your external users.

• Acquire External Connector (EC) licenses for each copy of the Windows Server 2003 software that will be accessed by your external users.

An external user is a person who is not an employee, or similar personnel of the company or its affiliates, and is not someone to whom you provide hosted services using the server software.

… It is not applicable to Windows Server 2003 R2 Web Edition or Windows Small Business Server.

.Quote from Microsoft source

In addition, you may need MS SQL Server. Important to know here is that also requires CAL per user/device that access it. It also requires a separate license per each server that it is installed. Here you have also an option to use Processor Licensing Model which doesn’t require any CAL. In most cases it is the most suitable license. But note that it is per process or per virtual processor. And if you have two processors box you will need two licenses. For more information go to MS site. You also can choose to use MS SQL Server 2005 Express that is completely free and does not require any licenses but it has some limitations like 4 Gb limit of the database, 1 processor support and 1 Gb addressable RAM. [Update 09.02.2009: You can compare MS SQL Server editions' features here and you can get information about prices here. ]

WSS 3.0 can be installed in two ways: Basic Installation and Advanced Installation. Basic installation uses Windows Integrated Database which is completely free and has no any limitations. It will allow you to safe money from licensing SQL Server. The problem here is that Basic Installation is limited to only one computer. It means that all parts of the WSS are installed in one machine. Consequently, it is not scalable solution because you are not able to create Web Farms and Database Farms. Advanced installation has no any limitations but it requires an instance of SQL Server.

Another one component that you may need is MS Search Server 2008. It can be installed over WSS 3.0 and will allow your SharePoint Services solution to provide an advanced search capabilities similar to those in Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007. It has two editions Express and Full. You can use express edition which is almost like the Full one except that there is not support for high availability and load balancing.

Conclusion. If you need a scalable solution that will serve a lot of users you will need to pay a good amount of money for all licenses that you will need in order to deploy a Web Farm, Index Server (in the case you will use Search Server 2008) and Database Farm. But for small solution, test solution or demo solution you can save a vast amount of money using a configuration like this: Windows Server Web Edition and WSS 3.0 (Basic Installation) and optional MS Search Server 2008 Express with MS SQL Server 2005 Express. It is possible because Web Editions of Windows Server allow installation of MS SQL Server Express. Actually, Windows Server 2003 Web Edition has a limitation for using only MS SQL Server Express but Windows Web Server 2008 allows installation of any MS SQL Server version.