Volume Licensing Guide

There’s a July 2015 Volume Licensing Guide released by Microsoft giving a broad introduction to both program licensing and product licensing.

It covers agreements for commercial, government, nonprofit, and academic customers as well as those aimed at software and service partners.

There’s a nice table on page 19 comparing the commercial programs which is a useful summary. The product licensing section of the document isn’t updated for Windows 10 yet, but again is a good overview of how the licensing works for each product.

Get this guide here: http://bit.ly/1MMvySK.

Microsoft Operations Management Suite

The Microsoft Operations Management Suite (which manages Windows and Linux workloads across a Windows Server datacenter, as well as Azure, Amazon Web Services, OpenStack and VMWare environments) was released in July 2015.

The Suite services are available separately charged as Azure consumption services, or via an Add-on for System Center Standard or Datacenter.

The final page of this OMS datasheet details pricing for the Add-on – for which there’s a promotion until 31 December 2015, as well as listing all of the Azure services that make up the Suite: http://bit.ly/1NqeiDf.

Microsoft Licensing and the Google Cloud Platform

Google announced in mid July 2015 that Windows Server 2012 R2 is now supported on the Google Cloud Platform: http://bit.ly/1MxgkST.

Windows Server image pricing starts at $0.02 USD/hour on top of the virtual machine cost. All Windows images are charged for a minimum of 10 minutes and after that are charged by the minute, rounded up to the nearest minute: http://bit.ly/1Pve4Ke. License Mobility for server applications is also supported and Google talks about that here: http://bit.ly/1fkBjJV.

Cloud Solution Provider Program

The Cloud Solution Provider program allows partners to provide a complete managed cloud solution for their customers. The program is growing – Azure and CRM Online have recently been added and the program itself is available in 131 markets.

If you want to find out more about CSP there’s an extremely comprehensive FAQ site here (http://bit.ly/1Unlh1V) with over 230 questions covering the products, contracts and billing, and available admin tools.

June 2015 License Verification Form

The License Verification Form is used to record which server application licences with SA have been assigned to Azure virtual machines or to Service Provider’s shared hardware.

The latest form is dated June 2015 and has been updated for Skype for Business: http://bit.ly/1E6vPsV.

If you want to learn more about the whole licence verification process then this customer guide is a useful resource: http://bit.ly/1o9hNAQ.

Advanced Threat Analytics Licensing Datasheet

Advanced Threat Analytics has been added to the Enterprise CAL Suite, the ECAL Bridges, as well as the Enterprise Mobility Suite and the Enterprise Cloud Suite. However, it’s also available as a standalone offering and there’s a new licensing datasheet explaining all. Essentially it’s a Client Management Licence model which can be purchased, as usual, by user or OSE.

The licensing datasheet also has a useful FAQ page – find it here in the Core Infrastructure section: http://bit.ly/MSlicensingguides.

August 2015 Updated Volume Licensing Briefs

Due to the arrival of Windows 10 in July 2015, four of the existing Microsoft Volume Licensing Briefs have been updated for August 2015. Read on to find out what’s changed in each document.

“Licensing Windows desktop operating system for use with virtual machines” (http://bit.ly/IKPKXE)

  • Updated for Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education throughout
  • Remote access of VOSEs is no longer on “device(s) in your datacenter” but on “device(s) dedicated to Customer’s use” (page 3)

“Windows desktop operating system license requirements” (http://bit.ly/1jNIsjQ)

  • Updated for Windows 10 throughout
  • Wording changed to clarify that an assignment of a Volume Licensing Upgrade license is permanent UNLESS there is active SA and a couple of other conditions are satisfied (page 2)

“Licensing Windows and Microsoft Office for use on the Macintosh” (http://bit.ly/Hkv3BM)

  • Updated for Windows 10 and Office 2016 for Mac throughout
  • Note added that when licensing Office on a per user basis through Office 365, the licence must be assigned to a single user before using the software (page 4)
  • Office 365 ProPlus and Office 365 Business are added to the list of equivalent editions allowed under platform independence rights and there’s a note that Office 365 click-to run automatically installs the Mac versions of the Office applications (page 5)

“Downgrade rights for Microsoft Volume Licensing, OEM, and full-package product licenses” (http://bit.ly/17o1yEf)

  • Updated for Windows 10 throughout
  • A frequently asked question is added confirming that users licensed with Windows SA per User receive downgrade rights for all of their devices (page 4)
  • Another question is added confirming the downgrade path for Skype for Business CALs (page 5)