EH-Net

I suspect I know the M$ answer to this (I always just assume the worst case), but I'm curious for anyone who has had to deal with licensing for training.

A client of mine wants me to do some on site training for IT staff in the near future.  So I can more closely guarantee that everything works just the way it should, I've thought about purchasing some laptops, installing VMware workstation on them, and loading up some VM's for the students to play with.  Their IT "training lab" doesn't have the necessary hardware for everyone to have their own server to play with and it doubles as the patch testing lab prior to production deployment.  Neither of those make for good training and that doesn't make for repeat business.

I know I need a license for each laptop for VMware workstation, but when it comes to demoing administration (or pen testing or whatever) on a windows server operating system, do you need to purchase a license from M$ for each server instance for each student?  Seems like that would add up so quickly nobody could afford to give some of the training I've been to over the years, but I don't want to go in and be breaking the law either...

Thanks in advance for opinions (preferably educated ones).

Well, for one, how come you can't use VMware Server instead (which is free)?

I can't say with 100% certainty, but I am pretty sure that each instance of Windows requires a license. I also recall at the recent ChicagoCon during a presentation about a training environment, that Windows licensing was brought up as a hurdle to overcome - which is why the environment is using Linux instead for the moment.

My suggestion: use the 180-day trials :)

BillV

Use www.virtualbox.com and use the evaluation licenses for Microsoft.

Thanks for the thoughts.  Wish I could have made Chicagocon to hear that.  It would have been a real benefit.

BillV, vmware server is certainly an option, I just like being able to have multiple snaphot functionality on anything (although maybe for a short 1-2 day class where I can image the machines afterwards that's overkill).

impelse, I had looked at virtualbox already, but I have an investment in vmware images that I hate to give up to migrate products.  Do you experience with both it and vmware where you could say that virtualbox is as usable as vmware?  I don't care for me, I'll learn whatever.  My concern is for someone in a class.  Almost everyone I work with has some familiarity with VmWare and I hate to have to teach virtualbox first in order to teach the class.  If you have real world usage experience with both though, I'd love to hear it.

Late response, but check out a Technet download subscription. It's $349/year ($249/year renewal), and you get access to all MS products with no limitations. This is obviously for trial/test usage.

When you sead without limitations could be Installed Windows 2008 in virtual machines and will expire? Because normally takes more than 6 month to complete a certification

Take a look at this thread:

Microsoft Helps Users Extend Eval Period on Windows Server 2008... Honestly! (http://www.ethicalhacker.net/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,54/topic,3576.0/)

It's still the virtual/trial method, but it will give you more time.

Hope this helps,
Don

Sorry, I should have provided a link: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/ms788692.aspx

There are absolutely no restrictions, expirations, etc. This includes all Microsoft products, so you get access to Enterprise versions of Server 2003/2003, Exchange, SQL Server, etc. I relied on this heavily for my MCSE and MCITPs.