Win Server 2003 user cal question

A couple of years back I bought win2k3 and 50 cals (user). Now that I want to expand the network capabilities (adding exchange and sql2k5) I purchased another Win server 2k3 and another 5o user cals. My question is this. One server is set up as the DC and DNS as well as a file and print server. Initially I was going to join this second server to the domain and run exchange and sql2k5 on it for the same group of users (although now I've received advice to not run both exchange and sql on the same box, so i'm rethinking that one. Now the question is in regard to the user cals... say user Bob connects to the domain...accesses the file server (box 1) and then works in the sql database (box 2). Does this require 2 user cals? When I purchased the second set of 50 cals my intention was that it was not for the same set of users using the first 50 cals. So I guess the short version of my question is do I have 100 user cals for my domain or do I have 50 user cals for box 1 and 50 for box 2 and each user will be using one from each?

Thanks,

Mike

Hi Mike,

You have 50 W2K CALS and 50 Win2003 CALS.
If you add an Exchange server you only need to purchase the Exchange CALS unless you have more than 50 users going to that server.

As for the question about 2 user CALS, no. Unless the client is connecting to the W2K and Win2003 at the same time. If the client is connecting to 2 Win2003 servers no additional CALS are required.

Jim

Hi all,

My name is Dan and I am new to Tech Soup. I am the Net Admin for a wholesale distributor company in Hawaii. I recently got this job and I'm still trying to piece things together. The IT for the company was in total disarray when I got here. Logistically, and technically. I was wondering...I have an exchange server (2003) with 87 mailboxes. I have close to 60 machines. I found some old paperwork stating that our company bought 75 exchange CALs back '05. My question is if you need these CALs in order to access the server how come I haven't come across any problems yet on the exchange or win server side? Or is it that I'm not looking in the right place? I ask this because when I talk to these salsemen they're telling me that I need a CAL for each user and I don't understand why if I'm not getting a bunch of errors or anything when my users access the server.

Please help me.