Use Red-Gate’s backup… and Go to Jail???

A reader just informed me that there’s a huge problem with Red-Gate’s licensing for SQL Backup. I never would have dreamed this, but I checked, and it’s true.

The basic problem is this… if you buy a SQL Backup license, it’s not transferrable. That means that you buy it for a specific machine, and not for use as a license in your organization. If you get a license and end up decommissioning that machine, you can’t reuse that license in your company. You have to buy another license for a new machine. This scenario is very common where you move an application to another box because you initially over or under spec’d the hardware. Or perhaps you are simply consolidating servers and you want to put your SQL Backup licenses back in the general pool. Well, won’t happen here. Oh, and if you doubt what I’m saying, it’s right on their site. Here’s the text from their online license agreement.

All software is licensed on a per computer basis. For example, if you wish to use SQL Backup on more than one computer you will need an additional license for each additional computer on which the software is downloaded and installed. Furthermore, this license is not transferable between computers and as such you may not transfer the software between computers without purchasing an additional license from Red Gate Software.

And here’s the link to it so you can see for yourself.

Personally, I find that not only incredible, but maybe even a bit offensive. It shouldn’t be that hard to upgrade or downgrade a box. If I buy a license, I should be able to use it any way I like.

Here’s my problem with this. What constitutes a server? Is it the motherboard, the CPU, the chassis, the RAM, the disks? What combination of those things is a server? If I change the motherboard is it a new box now? Because Embarcadero has a similar licensing plan. They build the unlock key off of the hardware, so if you change a significant part of the hardware, your box will need to be re-licensed. Now, the big difference is that Embarcadero doesn’t charge you for that license. It’s wholly transferrable to other servers, you just have to build a new key based off of the new hardware. So that comes back to the question, what makes a server a server? At what point in this scenario am I going to have to buy a new Red-Gate license?

Now, common sense dictates that Red-Gate isn’t going to come after you for putting SQL Backup on a new box. If you have to upgrade, I’m sure they understand that. Or maybe they don’t, I don’t know. The point is though that it’s out of their hands. Merely by having that in their license, it’s taken out of their hands. So even if Red-Gate doesn’t come after you, the auditors still could. And if you’re found to be out of compliance, your CEO could officially go to jail. You could get an auditor with some kind of bug up his ass for your company and is looking for any excuse to cause a lot of trouble. Maybe you’re being investigated by another government agency and they’re working together. Maybe one of the other guys pissed him off and now he’s just in a bad mood. Maybe he just hates his job and he’s fighting with his wife. It doesn’t really matter. In chess we have a saying… never rely on your opponent’s stupidity. And in IT we have another saying (actually, I just coined it)… Never rely on the generosity of your auditor.

Keeping up with hardware is a lot easier in a smaller shop, but in a large enterprise, it’s almost impossible. Someone could change a major component on a server and you may not even know about it, and next thing you know… BOOM… you’re out of compliance. Personally, it’s too risky for me. There are too many unanswered questions, and I wouldn’t want to hinge my audits on an interpretation of what a “server” is.

This is the kind of thing that will keep a company out of the enterprise market too. That’s just not how you do big business. Companies like to do buy-aheads where they anticipate how many licenses they’ll need over say the next couple years, and buy in bulk at a discount. That doesn’t seem as possible with a licensing model like this.

Of course, I’ve got other problems with the product too. I just think the architecture wouldn’t scale well for a lot of servers. Right now, I’ve only got a couple dozen servers I’m responsible for, and I wouldn’t want to manage my backups with Red-Gate’s tool. And in my last gig I literally had hundreds of servers and I couldn’t even imagine having to manage that many backups with Red-Gate. It’s simply not an enterprise tool. Now I like Red-Gate… I like their products, and I like the people (esp that little cutie that got me to talk in front of the camera at PASS). But I have to tell you guys the truth here, and that truth is, that I just don’t think that SQL Backup is an enterprise tool. I personally wouldn’t even want to use it on 10 servers because I just don’t like the distributed management model.

And of course, all that’s just opinion, but the licensing issue isn’t… that’s fact, and I think it’s an important one. And that alone would keep me away from using SQL Backup.