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All,<br />
I've read a LOT about upgrading from Windows Server Essentials 2012 to Windows Server Standard 2012 BUT, some things have changed since a lot of the articles were written. R2 is now out which brings me to my questions.<br />
<br />
We are currently running Windows Server 2012 Essentials and need to upgrade because we are going to go over 25 users soon.<br />
<br />
Here are my questions:<br />
1. What version of Server Standard 2012 do we purchase? the original version or R2? (keeping in mind that we are NOT on R2 currently)<br />
2. Can we purchase an <u>OEM</u> base license and then add the CALS?<br />
<br />
I don't have a go-to person at Microsoft for licensing and figured one of you have done this before.<br />
<br />
Thanks all!
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All,
I've read a LOT about upgrading from Windows Server Essentials 2012 to Windows Server Standard 2012 BUT, some things have changed since a lot of the articles were written. R2 is now out which brings me to my questions.

We are currently running Windows Server 2012 Essentials and need to upgrade because we are going to go over 25 users soon.

Here are my questions:
1. What version of Server Standard 2012 do we purchase? the original version or R2? (keeping in mind that we are NOT on R2 currently)
2. Can we purchase an OEM base license and then add the CALS?

I don't have a go-to person at Microsoft for licensing and figured one of you have done this before.

Thanks all!

Upgrading from Windows Server Essentials 2012 to Windows Server Standard 2012

Windows Server 2012 is the server version of Windows 8 and the successor to Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows Server 2012 is the first version of Windows Server to have no support for Itanium-based computers since Windows NT 4.0. Windows Server 2012, now in its second release (Windows Server 2012 Release 2) includes Foundation, Essentials, Standard and Datacenter, and does not support IA-32 or IA-64 processors.

Windows Server 2012

Small Business Server (SBS) is a line of server operating systems targeted at small businesses by bundling the operating system with a number of other Microsoft products that would normally need to be purchased or licensed separately. The most notable inclusions are Exchange, SQL Server, SharePoint and ISA/TMG (Microsoft's firewall and proxy server).