Microsoft Volume Licensing?

[harryting]

As cyber security concern and compliance requirement increases in my world. We are being pressed to at least do periodic patching review but not necessarily doing the patching on control system servers and PCs.

One thing I found is MS Servers are very pricy and also very difficult to figure out exactly what's needed to be 100% compliant. It seems volume licensing would solve a lot of these issues. Does anyone here have such licensing with MSFT and who do you go through?

Yes, our IT have such agreement but past attempts to leverage that gets a confused look. So I'm figuring out if it's worthwhile to have our own agreement. If we have to upgrade say every 5 years, it may work better to move toward a subscription model.

 

[TheWaterboy]

We use the same agreement as the rest of the org. We have our own installs... WSUS , SQL, Domain, servers VMware, whatever it is, they have more of them. When I need help they are available . It's a good arrangement but takes care to cultivate to keep them on their side of the firewall.

I fought their involvement for a long time but the new security audits being imposed forces my hand. They have staff that deal only with security and if I want to get anything else done, I need that handled. But... I have a good relationship with them so that makes it all work. I don't think you have a choice any longer, but they have to be accommodating to OT needs and and the risks you are willing to accept that they can't. That is the bigger issue that needs to be addressed.

Oh, and use LTSC versions of the software, we don't need the feature updates that have a tendency to break things.

 

[Phil Buchanan]

It would be very surprising for your company to buy a second agreement. They are very very expensive.

I have always used CDW with good results and support. it's best to buy a little more than you need and avoid a lot of strict management.

There are agreements that cover a whole company or a whole site in whatever is needed and it's normally covered for a year then reevaluated.