I have been using DPM 2010 happily and have upgraded to 2012 and really liking it until I read the licensing. Maybe I should have read the licensing first but it really seems like using dpm 2012 for smaller clients is just downright unaffordable.  I work for an MSP and we manage clients ranging from 10 users - 250 users and I really like DPM and we were slowly looking at leaving Symantec and going to DPM.  Looking into licensing a bit closer and it seems like it will be impossible to afford given that we only use DPM and nothing else that is included in the system center package.  Can someone please, please tell me that I am missing something. IE: We have a 3 node cluster with 45 VM's on it.  My current understanding is I will need 3 Datacenter Licences = ~12k.  DPM 2010 cost because I only needed agents on 10 of those VM's was ~6k.  Oh and I am nearly forced to used DPM because I am using CSV's and no other solution is cluster aware.  For a smaller client that only has 1 VM host and 4 VM's, still need to spend close to 4k for backups ????? Ya that's going to fly, when we have backup exec doing it for half that.   

I JUST WANT A GOOD BACKUP SOLUTION!!! I hate Symantec but we are going to have to switch back.

Please help / clarify.

steve.

Hi

You can run through the Microsoft license advisor to get an estimate on pricing.

http://mla.microsoft.com/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/about-licensing/systemcenter2012.aspx

you can look here as well:

http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/networking/system-center-2012-licensing-primer/5310

• Marked as answer by bensler Thursday, August 16, 2012 4:09 PM

I, too, have been trying to determine licensing requirements and costs associated with an upgrade from DPM 2007 to 2012 and cannot determine what is necessary in the new "simplified" licensing agreement.

I have read numerous web sites, aritcles, forums, white papers, blogs, wikis, etc. and still have no idea what license I need to acquire for each protected server.

The links provided do not help, as the first link will eventually take you to the second one.

The licensing wizard is of no value in this case.  The Quick Path errors out on the third page; the Full and Guided Paths ask you how many licenses you need for each version of System Center, which is the very thing I'm trying to find out from the wizard.

The third link conflicts with the System Center licensing datasheet in that "client" licenses are for non-server OSes only.  I'm backing up servers, not workstations.

So, as the original poster stated, it appears that each server that is to be backed up apparently needs a full server ML.  This makes no sense as I don't need each server to be capable of running/managing the full System Center suite.  I do doubt that it is now implied that I don't need server agent licenses anymore - that I license my 2 DPM servers and backing up all other servers is now free.

Ultimately, from everything I can determine it looks as if the costs of this upgrade are so great that I will be forced to find an alternative solution for backing up our servers or run our servers with no backup solution in place.

What software is everyone else turning to? Acronis? Symantec?

Rick

• Edited by scdl Wednesday, November 07, 2012 9:06 PM

Bingo! DPM 2012 just not going to happen with the new licensing scheme.  Which means no Exchange or SharePoint 2013 either because I won't be able to back it up with DPM 2010 from what I can tell.  Either that or go 3rd party backup software which I'm no fan of Symantec either.

I know this is a MS Forum, but take a look at Appassure for a backup solution, although I am staying with DPM 2010 and 2012, I had a demostration of their system (Dell owns them now) and it looked very promising if I didn't already have what I needed.

http://www.appassure.com/

STAY AWAY FROM APPASSURE! 

that is by far the worst backup product I have ever used. I've been trying to implement and use for over 3 years and have not had any successful BMR or recoveries when it counted. My DR plan has been close to being catastrophic losses; luckily I had contingent software and products in place after my first realworld failures an inability to use appassure to recover a physical machine, and then a VM that failed after a bad windows update. 

Symantec, although more costly worked much better for me and I never had a failed recovery in over 5 years. AppAssure is also an extreme bandwidth hog! utilizing 1Gb/s network, bandwidth was heavily saturated during server backups preventing other services from performing optimally.

I'm currently reviewing other options again; and I may go back to Symantec if these vendors don't prove their worth with live demos in my environment before I buy.