[Beowulf] Need Help...!

[Michael T. Halligan]

Kamran,

My first approach would be to call up the application manufacturer 
directly and ask them how
their licensing works. Explain your situation, and get their 
recommendation.  After you find
out the deal on that piece of software, start talking about bulk 
pricing. A lot of companies,
especially ones with specialized software, are willing to give good bulk 
discounts to universities.

If that fails, find a VAR (Value Added Reseller). Typically a good VAR 
can get you discounts
on anything they sell of 25-45% off of the manufacturer's price.  You'll 
get even better discounts
if you can purchase say the 50 pieces of software, as well as some 
servers, or some other software,
or some support licenses through the var.  I always try to make my 
purchases large, and combined. If
I know I'm going to need to spend $250k in a quarter on software & 
hardware, but I won't need a portion
of it until the end of the quarter, I'll let my vendor know what I plan 
on ordering, and how much I want
to order initially, and they will almost always offer me extra discounts 
to do the entire purchase at once.


>Hi,
> 
>I am working as an IT Manager at NED University of Engineering &
>Technology, Karachi, Pakistan, and currently managing a Linux based
>Cluster of 50 nodes. I just wanted to ask you that how to manage
>licensing issues on a beowulf cluster. Lets say, if you want to run an
>application software on 50 nodes then will you purchase 50 licenses of
>that software or if there is any other alternative to handle this
>licensing issue, because purchasing such a huge number of licences
>will definitely be very expensive. Actually, I also want to purchase
>different software for my 50 noded cluster but purchasing 50 licences
>of each software costs me alot, thats why I am in need of your
>guidance and kind suggestions.
> 
>Regards,
> 
>Muhammad Kamran Mustafa
>I.T. Manager
>Centre for Simulation & Modeling, 
>NED University of Engineering & Technology,
>Karachi, Pakistan.
>Tel: (9221) 9243261-8 ext 2372
>Fax: (9221) 9243248
>_______________________________________________
>Beowulf mailing list, Beowulf at beowulf.org
>To change your subscription (digest mode or unsubscribe) visit http://www.beowulf.org/mailman/listinfo/beowulf
>  
>


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