SharePoint 2007 for Internet
Most smaller organizations who are looking to consolidate their enterprise content management are going to be looking towards SharePoint Server 2007 to hopefully answer those needs.
What you may not necessarily understand that in order to turn on MOSS 2007 to face internally and externally, there is a fairly complex licensing arrangement.
For the intranet, as we know, the product is licensed using a Server plus Client Access License (CAL) model. The organization will need a single license per server, and as many CALs to cover intranet users.
There are two types of CAL, the standard CAL and the enterprise CAL.
The standard CAL provides the rights to use document management, records management, web content management, portal and search capabilities. Most organizations will probably just need this CAL for the majority of their users.
The enterprise CAL provides access to the tools that have been broadcast as the truly enterprise-level capabilities of the product. This includes Excel Services, InfoPath Forms Server and the Business Data Catalogue (BDC). BDC is required to hook into LOB applications, as well as to hook search into your LOB apps.
So, if all of your users need to access forms through InfoPath Forms Server, you need:
- A MOSS 2007 license per server (not CPU, as previously)
- A SharePoint Standard CAL per user
- A SharePoint Enterprise CAL per user
That’s right: you need the Standard CAL and the Enterprise CAL, as the Enterprise CAL does not include standard access.
For the extranet or externally facing website, the deployment scenario is slightly different. For this, the organization will need to license Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 for Internet (this is a distinct SKU in the Microsoft price lists – this link is available without registration or authentication).
According to Microsoft, there are a few parameters around using this product:
- All content, information and applications must be accessible only to non-employees;
- The site should not be accessed by employees for creating, sharing or collaborating on content for internal use. Employees, however, can use this license to access the server to create content that is accessible to non-employees (i.e. an extranet or website); and
- A CAL is not necessary for an employee to access content on the publicly facing website.
So, to sum it up, if you want your website to use the SharePoint 2007 platform, as well as use MOSS 2007 for an intranet scenario, you will need:
- A MOSS 2007 license per server
- A SharePoint Standard CAL per employee
- A SharePoint Enterprise CAL per employee (if accessing Enterprise features)
- A MOSS 2007 for Internet license per server
If you’re curious about licensing costs, check the Microsoft US Open License Price List.
