AD Integration - CAL License issue?

[bensewell]

Sorry this might not be in the correct place but if the Alfresco Server is linked to the AD server to pull accounts through for setting up users would this involve needed windows client access licenses (CALS).  All the computers in our business have CALS as its a windows network but will this have an effect for users who are connecting into the system from home who will not have a the relevant CAL license on their home machine?

[bensewell]

Anyone?

[mrogers]

No I don't think this is the right place since this is an alfresco forum.

You would need to refer to the licence terms for your AD server.   I did a quick browse and found that there are "Device" cals and "User" cals.    You may just need a single "device" cal.

Technically it won't make any difference.
  
It would seem a bit rich to need a CAL just for retrieving a few LDAP details.    If you do need a cal for each external user I'd be tempted to stick them in another LDAP server or replace AD altogether.

[bensewell]

Well that's what i thought too if the chaining methods are swapped around a bit.  My licensing work around solution was something along the lines of:

1.  All Alfresco AD users are put into a group
2.  This group is synced into Alfresco on a daily basis.
3.  The chaining is changed to Alfresco, LDAP1 (our AD), LDAP2 (other AD)

This means that when a user tries to logon their account details are first checked against the MySQL data held in Alfresco if this is a match the user is logged in.  Else it tries to match with details on our AD server, then tries another AD server and if all these fail then the user cannot login.

And as the alfresco server is talking to the AD server this would only need one CAL i think. 

Thanks, Ben