Where do you specify a different product key for your front end web servers and your app server?

Question

I have a farm with two front end web servers and one app server. The app server has a Enterprise Licensing Key. All three servers were installed with this Licensing Key. We need to have this site exposed to the Internet, so the "For Internet Sites" product key was purchased. How do I change this product key in the farm, but just for the two front end web server only, not through the Upgrade to Enterprise Key in CA.

To ask this in a different way, is the idea of a mixed license farm possible or is this just a licensing auditing "true up" way to report what your licensing is?

Currently have:

• Web 1: Enterprise License
• Web 2: Enterprise License
• App 1: Enterprise License

Want:

• Web 1: Enterprise For Internet Site license
• Web 2: Enterprise For Internet Site license
• App 1: Enterprise License

Answer 1

To my knowledge this model does not exist, you need to have the exact same licensing type on all servers in the SAME farm. Of course you could envision multiple farms and consume published Service Applications from other farms!

Regards, C:\Marius

Answer 2

From experience I can tell you that Microsoft licensing is a crafty art that should only be explained to you by a legally qualified MS rep. You want to get in touch with your MS sales rep to ensure you are truly legal (and make sure you get everything in writing!!1!) You could get twenty different answers to this question and you still won't know where to go.

To (mostly) answer your question I am pretty sure you will need to purchase external licenses for ALL of your servers, including your SQL Server.

Good luck (:

Answer 3

Per the Licensing details for SharePoint 2010, all servers that provide content to external users must have the Internet Sites license applied. The applicable statement is:

SharePoint Server 2010 for Internet Sites must be licensed on all servers (staging, application, index, front-end) that provide content to external users.