What is Product use Rights (PUR)?

from microsoft.com:

“When you purchase a software license through a Microsoft Volume Licensing program, the terms and conditions for how you can use the software are defined in the Volume Licensing Product Use Rights (PUR) document, Product List document, and program agreement. The PUR is updated quarterly.”

The change

Effective January 1 2014 Microsoft made a pretty significant change to the Software Assurance benefit. This is from the Windows Server 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Service Licensing Data Sheet:

RDS User CALs Extended Rights through Software Assurance
Today, RDS CALs permit remote access to the Windows Server GUI (Graphical User Interface) running on a customer’s on-premise server and RDS SALs (Subscriber Access License) if running on a shared-server environment. Effective January 1 2014, RDS User CALs will have Extended Rights through Software Assurance. In addition to the on-premise access, RDS User CAL customers will also be able to access the Windows Server GUI running on Windows Azure or on a third party’s shared server, without acquiring a separate RDS SAL.

To leverage this benefit customers should meet following requirements:

• Maintain Software Assurance coverage on the RDS User CALs
• Use dedicated VOSE (Virtual Operating System Environment) in Windows Azure or third party’s
  shared servers
• Access Windows Server session-based desktops and/or applications running on shared server
  environments
• Limit access by internal users only i.e. by company employees, vendors and contractors and not by
  external users such as customers
• Assign each on-premise RDS User CAL to the same named user on Windows Azure or a third party’s
  shared servers

This RDS User CAL Software Assurance benefit allows each User to access RDS functionality only on one shared server environment (i.e. Windows Azure or a third party server) in addition to access the respective on premise servers. The customer must acquire extra RDS SALs (Subscriber Access License) if the same User needs to access RDS functionality on additional shared server environments.

This is indeed great news for all customers wanting to access a remote Windows Server Desktop in Windows Azure or at another third party hoster.

More info:

• Microsoft Product Use Rights and Product List
• Windows Server 2012 R2 Remote Desktop Services Licensing Data Sheet

Introduction

I needed  way to easily stop and start my different lab setups in Windows Azure. I don’t want to keep running, and pay for, a set of VMs I use maybe once a month. So here is a PowerShell script to stop and start a set of Azure VMs. One important dimension here is the order in which the VMs start (and possibly; shuts down, depending on your setup). Since all IP addresses are dynamically allocated in Windows Azure I had to make sure that my VMs started in a specific order and that the script executed synchronously. That way whatever IP they had when they were provisioned would most likely be assigned to them when they started. Therefore the script includes code to start and stop VMs in the order you specify them in the input file. It also tries to wait until the current VM is fully started or stopped before proceeding with the next one.

Pre-requisites, input file and usage

The input file is really simple. It is a text file with a Cloud Service name and a VM name on each line, separated by a semi-colon, no header:

<cs name>;<vm name>

The VMs in the file will be started in the order they are listed and stopped in the reverse order!

By default, the script looks for a txt file in its execution directory called Control-AzureVMs.txt. If it is not found PowerShell throws an error. You can override this behavior by specifying your own file with VMs to either start or stop.

You must already have your machine configured to use Windows Azure PowerShell and specify your subscription in the script:

Select-AzureSubscription “<your subscription name here>”

Whether you want to start or stop a set of VMs is controlled by a script parameter. You use either Stop or Start. Optionally you can add your own txt file with VMs after the Start/Stop parameter.

Usage with the default input file:

Control-AzureVMs.ps1 Stop

Control-AzureVMs.ps1 Start

Usage with the custom input file:

Control-AzureVMs.ps1 Stop MySetOfVms.txt

The code

Here is the code. I can think of all sorts of improvements, but I needed this quickly so that will have to wait. Error checking is pretty much non-existent at this point so use at your own risk. I accept no responsibility whatsoever.

https://gist.github.com/morgansimonsen/8529297

UPDATE: With the release of the Windows Azure PowerShell module v0.7.3 you can now create DHCP reservations for your VMs that will persist when the machine is deallocated. Check out Get-AzureStaticVNetIP, Set-AzureStaticVNetIP, Remove-AzureStaticVNetIP and Test-AzureStaticVNetIP.