Estimating Employee Growth
There always needs to be a balance on the number of licenses to get. Having a low amount could result in last minute purchasing or possibly halting hiring process. Having an over abundance would be wasted money that can be used for something else. It would be helpful to work with your colleagues on seeing the growth of the company and getting an appropriate amount of OS licensing based off of that.
Consolidate Infrastructure Hardware & Software
This is arguably one of the most important steps depending on how big your infrastructure is. Microsoft declares that a license for Windows Server is per core versus per processor. This can dramatically change the price of licensing given you have beefy servers with many multi-core processors (common with today’s standards). That’s why it is imperative to plan out your setup on a few factors. Things to consider such as
- Deciding if the server can go virtual or physical?
- Does the service a server provides require redundancy/high availability?
- Is it able to run on older Server OS (Windows Server 2012 or 2016 versus 2019)?
- How many multi-core processors do you want on your high-valued servers?
- Are there other ways to improve performance of the server (RAM, SSD, GPU, etc.)?
What it truly boils down to is making the decision to invest in the hardware upgrades or software upgrades. That is when proper planning comes into play and comparing the costs.
Choosing the right OS version for you
It’s important to consider what version of Windows your company is going to use. With the announcement of Windows 7 reaching end of support this year, your options are down to Windows 8,8.1, or 10. Windows 10 is the recommended option being its Microsoft’s project they constantly improve for the world. However, there’s the decision of which type of Windows 10 operating system to buy. For Enterprise level, it usually comes down to Pro or Enterprise. Comparing the two, Enterprise includes a few more features for security, but costs more money. The decision will need to be made of what the company wants their OS to come with natively.
Control the activation
Microsoft offers many options for regulating the license count you purchased for your organization. It’s very important to make sure you utilize the licenses in an appropriate manner. Otherwise, you may reach the limit quicker than expected forcing deactivation or fork over more money for additional licensing. Controlling activation with Volume Activation Management Tools, can help monitor your inventory.
