Understanding Parallels RAS SPLA

What are the benefits of Parallels RAS SPLA?

• No upfront costs. Pay as you go only for licenses based on what you make available to your customers each billing period.

• Ability to activate multiple farms using a single license key.

• Ability to track usage history for each farm in Parallels My Account.

• Automated usage accounting and billing.

How is it licensed?

Parallels Remote Application Server SPLA is licensed per peak number of concurrent users over a billing period. This information is automatically collected on a daily basis from each farm and is used to calculate the licensing cost at the end of a billing cycle.

To understand how Parallels RAS license usage is calculated, consider the following diagram:

On the diagram above:

1. A service provider activates one or more farms using a single SPLA license key.

2. As users connect to servers in different farms, each farm continually records the number of concurrent user connections. At the end of each day, all farms report their respective peak number of concurrent connections for that day to Parallels My Account, where it can be viewed by the service provider.

3. At the end of the last day of a billing period, the daily peak usage data for all farms is aggregated (more on this below) and the licensing cost for that billing period is calculated. The total amount to be paid will be determined as the licensing cost for the billing period (price per unit multiplied by the aggregated peak usage) less any prepaid amount.

4. Finally, an invoice is prepared and is emailed to the service provider.

5. Once the current billing period is closed, the next billing period begins and steps 2-3 above repeat for the duration of a given Parallels SPLA contract.

How peak usage is aggregated?

As was described earlier, the daily peak number of concurrent connections in each farm is automatically recorded and stored in Parallels My Account. At the end of a billing period, the daily data from multiple farms is aggregated to determine the total RAS licensing cost for that period. The following steps describe the aggregation procedure:

1. First, the peak number of concurrent connections is determined for each individual farm over the entire billing period. To do so, the highest number of all recorded daily peaks is identified and used as the peak number for the entire billing period.

2. Once the peak usage number is determined for each farm, the sum of these numbers is calculated, which becomes the total usage number for that billing period.

License consumption by connection type

The following table shows license consumption by connection type and user rights:

Connection Type	User Rights	Consumes RAS License
RAS desktop/published application connection	Non-admin	Yes
RDP desktop/published application connection	Non-admin	Yes
RAS published application connection	Administrator	Yes
RAS published desktop connection*	Administrator	No
Direct or tunneled RDP desktop connection*	Administrator	No

* Maximum up to two connections of either type per RD Session Host server.