SharePoint Licesnse How Microsoft calculate it?

Question

I have some questions related to SharePoint License , I hope to find a trusted answer about that.

• How Microsoft calculate the SharePoint license as per server license and as per CAL license , What's the difference ?
• How Many times can I use the SharePoint key ?
• What's the period of key expiration ?
• Can I use the same SharePoint key for multiple servers?
• What about the effect of using a real SharePoint key for personal use , is this will effect on the key owner?
• Can Microsoft know who use a specific key by listing the servers IP list and its location ?
• Is Microsoft inform the key owner that someone has been used your key ?
• Is there a free key for personal / dev environment ?
• Is there any walkthrough to extend SharePoint 2013 Trail for a personal environment without reinstall farm ?

Answer 1

• Each SharePoint Server must be licensed (with a Standard or Enterprise license).
• Each user must be licensed with a SharePoint User CAL. For Standard only features, they just need a SharePoint Standard User CAL. For Enterprise features, you must assign them a SharePoint Standard and Enterprise User CAL.
• You can use the key as many times as you want, but of course you must license each server the key is used with.
• The key does not expire.
• You can use the same key as many times as you need to.
• Keys are licensed to a specific organization. "Personal" use would likely fall out of scope of what the key is licensed for, unless you purchased your own copy of SharePoint Server.
• The key is not tracked by any means.
• There are no free keys for personal/development use -- instead, get an MSDN Subscription or provision the SharePoint Farm option on Azure (which you pay for the running costs of the VM, but not Windows or SharePoint).
• You cannot extend the trial of a SharePoint farm.

Answer 2

You can set up a Virtual Machine with Windows Server running, and reinstall your SharePoint Farm every time the trial expires. It's a bit annoying but it works for developing solutions without hardcoded GUIDs (because when you reinstall your farm the GUID identifiers will change for all the lists and views) In a corporate infrastructure, it is common to have several environments (DEV, QA, PROD) and as far as I know, licenses are only taken into account for the production (PROD) environment.