mass deployment of OS

[iamtheky]

I just started exploring deploying 2008 R2 Datacenter to @5000 systems worldwide, all independent of eachother. Many of them are online, but even a percentage of those may be restricted from what is necessary to activate online. I will certainly be discussing with MS how to facilitate this, as now its just a volume license. I have read about the "call and ask the nice person on the phone for the ID" solution provided, just wondering if there are any other mass rollout (of potentially disconnected systems) solutions I should ask about.

Currently, the only thing I can think is to ask if a single product key (the one on the image) can be tied to 5000 activation IDs and can I have all those IDs up front (rather than the end-user calling in), to send out with the discs? is that feasible?

Thanks

[cluberti]

If you're deploying that many seats of *datacenter*, you are likely to be able to get KMS keys. KMS keys only require access to the local KMS server, not Microsoft, and KMS keys are *much* more flexible for activating hosts than MAK or retail keys. You are limited to a max of 6 KMS keys by default for use in your KMS activation servers, but you can request more if you have a valid reason. You do need at least 5 servers and/or 25 clients before the KMS activations actually succeed, so you wouldn't want to use KMS for a small environment with 2 or 3 servers, or less than 25 clients. It might require some planning, but KMS is probably your best bet (especially with datacenter keys, as those are the most mighty with regards to downlevel activation of lesser versions of server, clients, and downgrades). If it must be *totally* offline, there is something called "Token-based Activation" (TBA) that you can ask your MS rep about. It's not really documented, and it's not really public, but it is available to large volume licensing customers from what I understand (it's similar to how OEMs activate windows via SLIC, but it's not *exactly* the same).

[iamtheky]

Nice, thanks Clu