SQL Server licensing and CALs explained

SQL Server is a popular product for companies of all sizes. SQL is a relational database management system from Microsoft. With this Server, you can easily store your data from your company and computers. In this blog, we answer all the questions you have about SQL Server licensing, CALs, what they are, how many you need, and SQL Server licensing and CALs will be fully explained. 

What SQL Server licensing models do I choose? Server + CAL or Licensing per Core?

It is better to choose for the Server + CAL model if your company is small, or relatively small. If you have a big company, or you expect your company to become big within foreseaable time, you should choose Licensing per Core as your SQL Server licensing model. SQL Server Enterprise is only available via Licensing per Core. This means you will not need any seperate CALs for that. Contrary, SQL Server Standard is available with both licensing models. Per Core Licensing is mainly more profitable and worth doing for large companies.

What is a CAL?

A CAL is a license that gives a user or device access to the software, in this case the SQL Server. The abbreviation CAL means Client Access License. You only need to acquire these CALs when you have schoen the licensing model Server + CAL. When you pick the other option, the CALs are not necessary. Before acquiring this, you should take a look at how many people work in your company, and what kind of growth you are expecting on this part.

User CALs vs Device CALs

We receive a lot of questions from customers whether they should acquire User CALs or Device CALs. You should decide this by the following 2 tips:

• If you have more users than devices within your company, for example 20 users and 12 devices, 12 Device CALs are the perfect fit.
• If you have more devices than users within your company, for example 25 devices and 15 users, 15 User CALs are the perfect fit.

How many CALs do I need?

This depends on how many devices or users you have and you want the SQL license for. This also depends on which one of the two you are going to acquire, following the 2 tips above. If you use the same examples as above, you will either need 12 Device CALs or 15 User CALs for your SQL Server.

SQL Server Standard vs Enterprise

The first big difference between the two is the form of licensing that goes together with the Server variant. With the Standard variant, you can choose both the Server + CAL licensing model and Per Core Licensing. The Enterprise version, can only be licensed by Per Core Licensing. The SQL Server Standard includes all the basic functions. SQL Server Enterprise includes all the basic functions aswell as some other functions. The Enterprise version has no database size limit, no memory limit, and not a maximum number of cores.

What is SQL Server Management Studio?

SQL Server Management Studio (SMSS) is used to manage, access and use SQL Server and its database. Over the years, Microsoft has been improving this, and it is a function that is used quite a lot nowadays. It can be used to quickly modify databases, optimize databases, import and export data and much more.