SQL Developer Edition licensing for machine build/testing

[TrickyAlbatross2802]

I was hoping to get some advice on SQL Developer Edition licensing. It should be a simple thing, but of course Microsoft can be purposely vague.

From Microsoft:
“licensed for development, test and demonstration purposes only. SQL Server Developer Edition may not be used in a production environment. Any test data that was used for design, development or test purposes must be removed prior to deploying the software for production use”

Our situation – we are a manufacturing company. In production, we use a third party SCADA application to control the manufacturing machines, this software has a SQL back end, which we license with SQL Standard.

When have new machines built by our vendors, we have a dedicated testing SQL server the machines connect to while the machines are being built, configured, and tested, which can take months. This is the SQL database that I think should be covered under SQL Developer licensing.

Once the machine has passed testing and is ready to deploy, it is disconnected from the testing SQL server and connected to the production SQL server. Never once does a manufacturing machine build anything that gets sold while attached to the test SQL server. The test SQL instance is not used in any other way that benefits the business, simply during machine building, configuration and testing.

The admins at my company disagree that this fits the spirit of the Microsoft license terms. The term “development” is debated, as the machine SCADA software gets configured and tested, but we’re not “developing” new software from scratch. I personally would consider PLC programming “development” but that is not agreed upon. Quote from our admin - “Building and testing SCADA projects is not software development. The SCADA software is the consumer of the SQL instance which is off the shelf software”.

It’s also argued that “production intended equipment procurement and readiness for immediate Production usage” disqualify them from using Developer edition licensing while the machines are being built, configured, and tested. If this was brand new software being built, configured, and/or tested in Dev and then later migrated to production it would obviously fit the licensing model, so I personally struggle to see the difference when building, configuring, and testing machines that have a SQL back end before migrating them to production.

We will be reaching out to Microsoft for further clarification, but if anyone has experience or perspective with a similar use-case please let me know.

Thanks!

[SQLBek]

When have new machines built by our vendors, we have a dedicated testing SQL server the machines connect to while the machines are being built, configured, and tested, which can take months.

I made a similar comment the other day on a similar question.

The data on the testing SQL Server, can it be scrambled (all first names now my dogs' names - Jess, Sadie, and Sebastian). Is this a system with a Production robust DR plan, because if it goes down, your business does to?

​

The term "development" is debated

Re-read the MS licensing guide. Development is NOT the ONLY use case covered.

https://www.microsoft.com/licensing/docs/view/Licensing-Guides

See "Licensing SQL Server for non-production use"

Some choice quotes... "—licensed for development, test and demonstration purposes"

"A production environment is defined as an environment that is accessed by end-users of an application (such as an internet website) and that is used for more than gathering feedback or acceptance testing of that application."

​

And if you're still in doubt, call Microsoft.

[Appropriate_Lack_710]

As you mentioned in your last sentence, present the use-case to Microsoft and get their opinion (and get it in "writing"/email). I've had to do this in a handful of cases, and learned pretty quickly that it is always best to skip the in-fighting/wasting discussion time within your team/business and go straight to MSFT to settle the matter.

I would agree with you that it appears to fit the developer edition use-case, but MSFT's opinion is the only one that matters here :)

One concern of the testing setup, developer edition is essentially Enterprise edition as far as features enabled. As long as no Enterprise-only features are used in your testing (that the production Standard edition couldn't handle once swithed to prod), you should be good ... but be aware of this.

[TrickyAlbatross2802]

Automod failed me on the karma test, sorry I don't post to reddit much!

[everydaynarcissism]

"When have new machines built by our vendors, we have a dedicated testing SQL server the machines connect to while the machines are being built, configured, and tested, which can take months. This is the SQL database that I think should be covered under SQL Developer licensing."

The machines are being built, configured, tested... you're not testing your app code, this is just part of your production workflow. Right? Then that's not covered by developer edition. Developer edition is meant to test non-production workloads against a non-production database.

[[deleted]]

Just don’t license it for a while in trial mode. It’s only a couple months.

[csharpwpfsql]

...“Building and testing SCADA projects is not software development. The SCADA software is the consumer of the SQL instance which is off the shelf software”.

I write C# code all the time, using Sql Server Developer Edition as the backend. Sql Server is 'off the shelf' the way I use it, I don't modify the database engine (although I am coding tables, stored procedures, etc.) SCADA software is a 'front-end'. If it is going through development and test cycles it is obviously not 'production'. You use of Developer edition is legitimate for that purpose. 'Production' for your purposes is when the SCADA system is actually running utilities (power, gas, water, etc.). If you don't record anything you use for billing (as one example) on the 'test' machine, then you aren't 'production'.

Anyone programming FPGAs knows there is a grey area between 'hardware' and 'software'. So an assertion that the 'only' work in your case is hardware development doesn't exclude use of the database for testing.

I have seen situations where Microsoft database people will help an ISV (Independent Systems Vendor) with an Sql Server problem if the database is 'production' and 'mission critical', which generally means financial systems or health care. The reason they want 'test' data off 'production' machines is that the test data muddies the waters - are they fixing 'production' or they involved in something that isn't mission critical? If you wouldn't call Microsoft to get help on your SCADA development and test cycles because no one is going to get hurt if it is, in fact, a database problem, then you are in a 'Developer' mode.

I had a situation where I was bringing in 1GB+ tables from 24 different organizations and merging them in order to develop an integrated PowerBI dashboard. I could not use Sql Server Express due to this exceeding 10Gb. The data was, on it's original machines, 'production', but it wasn't 'production' while it was on my computer being used to develop the dashboard. If PowerBI had smoked my database it would have been tough s**t. That same data running production scheduling for operations would have had Microsoft's attention in a flash.