SAP’s restrictive SAP CAL License Agreements
I was informed by the product owner of SAP CAL (Cloud Appliance Library) that creating AWS (Amazon Web Services) spot instances would be a violation of SAP CAL License Agreements. This was in response to my blog: http://scn.sap.com/community/developer-center/hana/blog/2013/11/11/using-aws-spot-instances-with-sap-cal.I modified the blog and removed all references to SAP CAL as per his request.
When users sign-up for SAP CAL, they have to accept one license agreement for SAP CAL and a second one for the solution they are creating (example: openSAP HANA).
WSA – Web Services Account (Example: AWS)
SAP CAL License Agreement:
Excerpt:
4. REMOTE ACCESS: You shall not download or otherwise receive delivery of the CAL Software, but, shall be required to (a) remotely access the CAL Software and (b) use the CAL Software to access SAP Software hosted on Your own WSA that You setup under an agreement directly between You and the applicable WSA provider.
SAP CAL openSAP HANA Solution License Agreement:
Excerpt:
4. REMOTE ACCESS: Except for the HANA Client, HANA Studio, and DSoDA software, You shall not download or otherwise receive delivery of the SAP Software, but, shall be required to (a) initially access the SAP Software remotely through the HANA Developer Center, and thereafter (b) use the SAP Software hosted on Your own WSA that You setup under a Developer Agreement directly between You and the applicable WSA provider for the sole purpose of developing Content.
Contradiction:
openSAP License agreement above allows for accessing SAP CAL software in AWS using non-CAL software after initial deployment whereas the SAP CAL License Agreement does not. The user’s guides for the SAP CAL solutions deployed from this site (http://scn.sap.com/docs/DOC-47930) say AWS software can be accessed via non-CAL software (RDP, SSH OS access, etc.)
SAP CAL’s use of RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) Access Point:
SAP CAL’s use of RDP client (Microsoft product) on users’ desktops (Connect operation) without explicit acceptance from the users to access AWS windows instances may violate Microsoft’s license agreement with the user. This method is currently used for openSAP HANA & BI AWS Windows Instances.
My request to SAP:
1) Replace the remote access section of SAP CAL License agreement with the remote access section of SAP CAL Solution License Agreement.
2) Disable RDP access from SAP CAL and request users to access AWS Windows instances from their own PC RDP clients.
3) Allow use of spot instances for AWS Intances created via SAP CAL. With thousands of students enrolled in openSAP HANA & BI classes, the savings for students could be substantial during the openSAP classes and later. One example here: AWS charges for normal m2.2xlarge instances is 82 cents/hour vs 7 cents/hour for spot instances.
Hi Mani,
in regards to your suggestion No.2, you can configure in your browser with which client you want to open the RDP file that CAL offers as download from within the UI. Alternatively you can obtain the IP address of the Windows machine from the instance detail screen and enter this IP address in any RDP client of your choice.
in regards to suggestion No.3, we had to take the decision to deliver the HANA training now to allow the community to get their hands on HANA asap while knowing that this means that we won't have every feature ready. We did not want to let the community wait any longer - but the spot instances are on the feature list of CAL already 😉
Best Regards,
Hannes
Hannes,
Thanks for taking the time to answer my comments/requests. These are my responses:
Paragraph #1: You may be talking about the RDP shortcut that the users can download during SAP CAL connect operation. I'm talking about the direct connect option to my AWS account during the Connect operation from SAP CAL. In any event, the direct connect option, by default or by user configuration, uses my RDP client on my PC. SAP CAL's (SAP Product) use of RDP client (a Microsoft product) on 1000's users' PCs without Microsoft license may violate Microsoft License.
I'm troubled by your comment "Alternatively you can obtain the IP address of the Windows machine from the instance detail screen and enter this IP address in any RDP client of your choice.". Is this not a violation of SAP CAL's license agreement (mentioned above in my blog as a contradiction) "shall be required to (a) remotely access the CAL Software and (b) use the CAL Software to access SAP Software hosted on Your own WSA..."? Here RDP client is NOT a CAL software. If this is not a violation, then please remove this clause from your license agreement as I requested in my blog above (Request #1).
Paragraph #2: When I took the openSAP HANA class in May-July 2013, the instructor, Thomas Jung, showed as in a video how to use AWS spot instances with SAP Hana instances in AWS Cloud.1000's of students who enrolled in this class were able to save 1000's of dollars by using AWS spot instances. In this regard, I would like to point out another clause in the SAP CAL license agreement "You may only create one (1)backup per CAL instance and only one (1)instance of the SAP Software can be created out of the CAL instance. You may not make additional copies of the SAP Software from instances on your WSA.". You pointed out that "You may not make additional copies of the SAP Software from instances on your WSA." clause prevents the user from creating AWS spot instances. My use of AWS software that SAP CAL creates in my AWS account would be governed by my agreement with AWS. SAP CAL takes my AWS account details and creates the most expensive normal instances (94 cents/hour for normal instances vs 10 cents/hour for spot instances + EBS charges for normal instances). First of all "You may not" is only a suggestion -- I don't believe this is legally enforceable especially for my account in AWS that I'm paying for. Many students enrolled in the openSAP classes are from Developing countries. Currently, about 30,000 students are enrolled in the openSAP Hana and BI classes. Assuming each student uses about 100 hours to do the class exercises, students are paying for 1000's of unnecessary dollars by being forced to use AWS normal instances by SAP CAL. You are preventing me to write a blog on how to use AWS spot instances to help them save money by quoting clauses in your license agreement which I believe are not enforceable or contradictory to other clauses. I would also request you to remove this clause and allow the use of AWS spot instances.
Thanks.
Hi Mani,
Thank you for your thorough look at the license agreement, I would not have figure out why I couldn't back up my CAL instance more then one time otherwise. And this is a very frustrating limitation to learn the system!Cheers, Robin
Dear Hannes,
Thank you for providing the CAL program. I’m using the BW7.4 on Hana CAL (Dev edition). Comparing to a permanent instance, the 10% fees of the spot request is even more beneficial.
To progress in the learning process, backing up the spot instance and then, resume its state later, after termination, is useful. Cloud you please indicate when the spot instance will be available (with the backup feature)?
Thank you,
Robin