Software Licensing for HA systems

I would like to know the experience of others with their software 
licensing and how they have responded when they implemented an HA solution 
such as MIMIX, iTera's ECHO2, etc.

As we have started preparing for implementing the ECHO2 solution, we 
contacted all of our software vendors about how we would deal having a 
second copy of their software on the HA system.  What we have found is 
that the software vendors' policies range from allowing the second copy 
for no additional charge all the way to requiring what we consider to be 
an unreasonable additional fee.

Our position with the vendors is that the second copy is only used as a 
disaster recovery backup and we will never be using more than one copy of 
the software at any one time, so we believe that anything more than a very 
nominal additional charge is unreasonable.  We have two vendors who are 
asking/requiring a fee equal to 25% of the list price for the HA copy of 
their software which we believe is very excessive.

I would like to hear the experience of others and how they have dealt with 
this situation when they implemented their HA systems.

Thank you,
Ronald L. Zimmerman
I.T. Applications Manager
Swiss Valley Farms, Co.      http://www.swissvalley.com
"The Good for You Company"
Email: Ron-Zimmerman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx