Liscence ??

[Migration User]

Can you tell me the way I check how many Liscence I'll need ?

Do I need 1 liscence for each computer we have in our organization

 

or

 

the number of client using ghost at the same moment.

 

 

The way I want to use GSS is :

 

I want to creat a master ghost image for a specific model and when I buy a new computer I just clone the new computer from my master Ghost Image.

 

so basing on the fact that we have about 700 computers in our organization, how many liscence will I need ?

 

thanks for the help

[Migration User]

From my understanding, you would need 700 if every computer is made with a ghost image. Under is what Nigel, a Symantec employee posted in another thread:

 

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we license machines, and not images. Just to be clear, though, the license monitoring we do in the console isn't everything; it's just a tool we give you to monitor your license use, but there is more to the full rules in the EULA (and of course, OEM licenses are different again to GSS licenses).

For the regular GSS perpetual client licenses, if you use the Ghost tools to deploy to a machine, console or not, including via a boot disk or any other method at all, you need a license for the machine and that license is considered attached to that machine until such time as the machine is wiped completely (scrapped, and/or the hard disks wiped - just uninstalling the Ghost client and removing the machine from console control is not sufficient to "reclaim" a license per the EULA). However, it's a perpetual license and you can Ghost that machine as many times with as many images as you like as long as that license is attached to it.

This is the licensing that has always been used for Ghost, in all the time I have been working on it (back to before Symantec acquired Binary Research), and covers the entire toolchain in the product (of which the console client is just another tool). If a client has a license, all the tools can be used on it, if they don't then none can.

Because you can use non-console tools (Ghostcast, boot CDs, and such) in situations where it is not possible for us to meter their use, it's not possible for the console license count to be considered an definitive measure of license use. As I said, it's more something we give you as a tool to help you figure out your license usage.

While GSS consoles are a part of the toolchain, we don't restrict the number of consoles anyone deploys; since they can only be used in conjunction with licensed clients, we don't demand the purchase of separate or additional licenses for the GSS console or other server components.

Now, .GHO images can't be run until they are deployed to a machine (at which point the machine they are deployed to needs a license), so we don't meter them. You can have as many as you like sitting around, it's only the ones whose contents have been deployed to machines (i.e., can be actively used concurrently) that count.

Note that the EULA for GSS2.5 also specifically states that "machine" includes virtual machine.

This means that in between these two situations are images to .VMDK files, if you built that .VMDK by cloning with Ghost. If you've built a virtual machine using Ghost tools, that would count too, but in the interests of fairness it's worth distinguishing two situations.

Clearly, for some customers it is desirable to use .VMDK simply as a vendor-neutral image format, without any intent of running from it. If you don't run a .VMDK, it's like an undeployed .GHO. If you do run from a .VMDK (i.e., attach it to a VMX), then you've in effect deployed a machine from it and it should indeed count (and console clients in VMs do count against the console license count, as consistent with this general philosophy).

The principle here is to come up with some way of licensing Ghost that is as fair and consistent as possible with the general concept that the price you pay is roughly proportional to the benefit you can get from it. No system is perfect, of course, but this general approach to Ghost licensing has been how it's been done for over 12 years now.

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