The database engine your company runs on, with the full coverage Software Assurance provides.
SQL Server Standard covers what a mid sized business genuinely needs: your ERP, your invoicing, your point of sale and your reports on a solid, supported database.
It brings basic high availability with two replica availability groups and two node failover clusters, and includes Power BI Report Server for publishing reports inside your own network.
What sets Open Value apart from a standalone perpetual licence is Software Assurance, included in the agreement and worth more than most people calculate.
With Software Assurance you can license virtual machines by core instead of having to license the full physical server. If your SQL runs virtualised, that alone justifies the programme.
It also gives you a passive failover replica with no additional licences, licence mobility within your server farm, the Azure Hybrid Benefit if you later move to the cloud, and the right to install any future version Microsoft releases during the agreement.
At the end of the three years the licences become perpetual and are yours for good, at the latest version you were entitled to.
And the cost spreads across three equal annual payments, so you budget the same figure each year with no large upfront outlay.
On licensing, where most mistakes happen: it is licensed by the server’s physical cores, all of them must be covered, and the manufacturer’s minimum is 4 cores per processor.
In practice, a single processor server with 4 cores requires 2 two core licences, and a dual processor server with 8 cores each requires 8 licences.
Core based licensing requires no CALs: you can connect as many users as you want with no additional per person licences.
Two Standard edition limits worth knowing: it uses up to 32 cores or 4 sockets, whichever is lower, and up to 256 GB of memory per instance.
We review your server, calculate the licences it requires, confirm whether Standard or Enterprise is the right fit and support your team through implementation.
