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).

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

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.

Take a look at this thread:

Microsoft Helps Users Extend Eval Period on Windows Server 2008... Honestly!

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

Hope this helps,
Don