Licensing

Toolkit documentation is not definitive

Do not use this page to decide whether SQL Server or another product is free for a particular workload. Azure Data Lab Toolkit grants no Microsoft or third-party use rights. Microsoft’s current Product Terms, license terms, service terms, and your agreements are definitive. Verify them before deployment.

Azure Data Lab Toolkit is licensed under the repository’s MIT License. That license covers this repository only. This page is an awareness aid, not legal advice.

The linked terms describe current external obligations. Automated license checks and catalog enforcement are committed design, not implemented behavior.

SQL Server editions

The direct SQL Server 2025 Developer, Express, and Evaluation license terms distinguish the editions:

• Developer permits design, development, test, and demonstration use, but not production use.
• Express is a separate no-cost edition with its own use and distribution rights. It is not merely “Developer for production.” Its technical capacity and feature limits must be checked in the current editions and supported-features documentation.
• Evaluation is time-limited evaluation software and is not licensed for production.
• Standard and Enterprise deployments require an applicable paid, pay-as-you-go, subscription, or bring-your-own-license route.

Start every SQL licensing decision with Microsoft Product Terms and SQL Server licensing guidance. A label such as “lab,” “demo,” or ContainsSensitiveData: false does not establish licensing rights.

Azure and Fabric charges

No-cost software rights do not make the surrounding lab free. Compute, Windows, storage, networking, Bastion, monitoring, backup, data transfer, and other services can be chargeable.

Check the current service and agreement terms together with the relevant pricing pages:

• SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines pricing guidance
• Windows Virtual Machines pricing
• Azure SQL Database pricing
• Microsoft Fabric pricing
• Azure Bastion pricing

Azure Hybrid Benefit, Visual Studio subscription benefits, reservations, savings plans, and organization-specific discounts have eligibility rules. The toolkit’s future cost report will show assumptions but will not determine entitlement.

Third-party tools and data

Open source, source-available, freeware, free tiers, trials, commercial products, public data, and redistributable data are different categories. Before the toolkit can automate an item, its catalog record needs:

• owner, contributors, and authoritative project link;
• license or commercial terms and the applicable version;
• redistribution and download permissions;
• purchase, account, or acceptance requirements;
• attribution and notice requirements;
• data-source rights and restrictions;
• version, checksum, provenance, and installed evidence.

A roadmap entry is a candidate, not a bundled dependency and not permission to redistribute it. Release-specific Third-party Notices will identify what a release actually downloads, installs, or distributes.

The older Azure SQLVM Toolkit has separate third-party notices. They do not grant rights for this repository or its future catalog.