I'm hoping to get some clarity on splitting Remote Desktop User CALs across three different servers. I recently bought 50 User CALs through a CSP for the first time, and when I entered the License Key, it immediately activated with a quantity of 500, which seems to be standard regardless of the actual number of CALs purchased.
My plan is to allocate 20 User CALs to Server A, 20 to Server B, and 10 to Server C, totaling 50 CALs. Since I already activated on Server A, will I face any issues trying to activate Server B and Server C using the same License Key? I've read conflicting information about multi-server setups with License Packs and I'm worried I might run into some obstacles trying to split the licenses. I've been bounced between my CSP and Microsoft, and I'm looking for any insight or confirmation on whether splitting CALs like this is even possible with License Packs. Thanks for any help!
3 Answers
Honestly, if you knew you'd need to split the licenses for multiple servers, it might have been smarter to purchase smaller packs so each server could have its own key. Since you've activated the 50-pack already, double-checking with CSP or Microsoft is really your best bet for clarity on how to proceed without issues.
There's usually no reason you can't have multiple RDS hosts using one license server, as long as everything is set up correctly. If all your servers are in the same workgroup or domain, they should be able to share the license server without any issues. If they're in different domains, you'll need a two-way trust to get them talking to each other for user CALs.
If you're dealing with separate networks, it's recommended to set up a master RDS License Server to manage all CALs. This way, you can distribute licenses as needed across your different servers. However, if the networks are isolated with no trust relationships, it complicates things since you can't easily allocate licenses between them.
Yeah, making a single server work isn’t an option for us. I just need to know if it’s possible to activate on each server with the same key.
Unfortunately, they are on different networks, locations, and domains, so combining them isn't an option for us.