Author Archives: licensingschool

Free SQL Server licences for migrating Oracle customers

Microsoft offer free licences for customers who want to move their Oracle databases to SQL Server.

The process? Organizations identify how many SQL Server Core licences they’ll need for the migration, sign a Server and Cloud Enrolment, pay Software Assurance only for the Core licences, and then prove that the migration has taken place.

Included in the offer there’s also free training and deployment assistance until 30 June, 2016.

See the full announcement and download the offer brochure here: http://bit.ly/1YOolWM.

MPSA: short-term subscriptions

Microsoft announce the availability of short-term subscriptions in the MPSA from March 2016.

This new option is available for selected Online Services (E1 and EMS among them) and allows customers to subscribe for one to eleven months.

This means that they don’t have to commit to a minimum of 12 months or even align to their Purchasing Account Anniversaries, making it a good choice for short-term projects or to cover seasonal variations.

Read the full Microsoft blog post here where there’s also a complete list of the eligible Online Services: http://bit.ly/1Uq7bOt.

Multi-Tenant Office 365 ProPlus

So, if customers have, say, Office 365 E3 licences acquired through an Enterprise Agreement, can Office 365 ProPlus be hosted on their Services Provider’s shared hardware and delivered to the customer through RDS? Mais oui!

This was a change that happened in January 2016 and as long as the Services Provider meets certain conditions required by Microsoft, all is well.

You can read all about this here: http://bit.ly/21BIYqW, or, if you’re a partner wanting to get involved, here’s a webcast to listen to: http://bit.ly/1QndX2M.

Getting Started with Azure in CSP

If you’re a Cloud Solution Provider partner selling Azure then this Getting Started guide from Microsoft is worth a look.

There’s useful information on the Azure admin portals, the relationship between tenants, subscriptions and services, and how to use the various parts of the Partner Center.

You’ll also find links to useful resources and how to get help from Microsoft.

Get the guide here: http://bit.ly/1KUBdbF.

Microsoft Hosting and CSP Newsletter

The February 2016 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider newsletter is out.

It’s got articles on the new Azure Hybrid Use Benefit and the changes to the Shared Computer Activation rights allowing Office 365 ProPlus to be deployed in third-party multi-tenant environments. There are also links for partners to useful Azure in CSP resources.

Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/1iVEvxV.

February 2016 Self-Hosted Applications Volume Licensing Brief

There’s a new (February 2016) Self-Hosted Applications Volume Licensing Brief.

The major change is that Unified Solutions may now be deployed on shared hardware and there’s a section added explaining the various possible scenarios on pages 3-4.

This also leads, of course, to a need for clarification on how Windows Server must now be licensed for a Unified Solution, and there’s reference throughout the document to the options: through your own or a Service Provider’s SPLA, through Azure, or making use of the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit.

Get the Brief here: http://bit.ly/1OF8zpt.

Windows Server Essential Licensing Questions – and their Answers

Our first Essential Licensing Questions book is just being updated for references in the March 2016 Product Terms document and then it will be off to the printers for its second print run. The first? That was exclusively for our worldwide team of reviewers – thank you everyone! – who put the book through its paces to check that it does what we want it to.

And we were jolly pleased with their feedback! The average rating was a fab 4.7 out of 5 stars with comments from our reviewers like “The perfect reference guide for anyone having to navigate Microsoft’s Windows Server licensing! All the questions you’ll ever ask (and some you haven’t thought of yet!) in an easy to use book.” and “This book is nothing less than amazing! It is incredibly thorough and detailed. I wish I had one of these to reference for all MS products!”

People did like the format of the book: “Even with a very short time of using the book it feels easy to navigate and find the answers I was looking for.” However, there were some good ideas to make navigation even better, so we’ve incorporated those and you’ll find, for example, that the updated book has additional headings throughout.

Every answer that we give in the book is supported by a Microsoft reference and this was appreciated by our reviewers: “An easy to use no nonsense book about Windows Server volume licensing including Microsoft references. Exactly what we need.” Then we asked people if they would personally find the book useful in their day to day work – an overwhelming 96% agreed they would use it, with comments such as “This is a very handy tool for day to day licensing questions.” and “In my line of work I get a lot of difficult licensing questions, this book helps me big time in my everyday work.”

Overall, we’re pleased to say that our review team were very happy to recommend the book:
• “A must have for all IT Departments, Licensing Specialist and SAM Consultants.”
• “This Manual is excellent and a must for the Licensing Community (LSP) and the Employees in charge of SAM in their organization (Customer).”
• “I would recommend this book to any licensing specialist and would love for a similar book to be brought out for other products.”

There are a couple of special offers if you want to get your own copy of the book. Launch price will be £14.99 ($22.99) in March but the pre-order price available until the end of Friday 4th March 2016 is just £9.99 + P&P. The other offer is Book Assurance. What’s that? Well, we took the decision not to include any Windows Server 2016 information until the product is released – sometime in the summer probably. That’s when we’ll update our book with all the relevant licensing information, and if you want to receive the updated copy at that time then you just need to order Book Assurance for £5 today. All the offers are available worldwide here: http://bit.ly/LSBooksPreOrder.

And the final word goes to a smitten fan: “I’m in love with black books.” We hope you enjoy using the book too!

Azure HUB FAQ

Microsoft release more information on the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit – here are the highlights from the FAQ:

  • Windows Server with SA licences can be used to license Azure Virtual Machines at the base compute rate which is equal to the Linux rate for VMs
  • Each Windows Server licence covers 2 VMs with up to 8 cores, or one VM with up to 16 cores
  • To use the Azure HUB you need to create a Windows VM through PowerShell and set a special property which bills the VM at the base compute rate
  • Gallery images can’t be used with Azure HUB.

Find the full FAQ here: http://bit.ly/1jeqDj6.

Office 365 Branches Renamed

Previously we had Current Branch and Current Branch for Business, now we’ve got the Current Channel and the Deferred Channel.

If you’ve heard of the First Release for Current Branch for Business then that’s now the First Release for Deferred Channel and is essentially a preview of the next Deferred Channel release.

You can find Microsoft’s announcement of these name changes here: http://bit.ly/1O6sn51.

Microsoft Hosting and CSP Newsletter

The January 2016 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider newsletter is out.

It’s got articles on the changes to the Rental Rights and those for self-hosting applications, as well as links to useful CSP resources and training, and a recording of the quarterly licensing webcast run on 20 January, 2016.

Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/1iVEvxV.