Author Archives: Louise Ulrick

Azure Hybrid Benefit for Azure Stack HCI

Microsoft introduce a new benefit for customers with Windows Server Datacenter licences with SA purchased through an Enterprise Agreement. It’s an extension to the Azure Hybrid Benefit and waives the fees for the Azure Stack HCI host service and Windows Server guest subscriptions, as long as all physical cores of the Azure Stack HCI cluster are licensed with Windows Server Datacenter Core licences.

You can find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3S4ldHf, and this is a good place to find out more, such as how the benefit is activated: https://bit.ly/3yOX54F.

Licensing Windows Server for use with virtualization technologies

There’s an updated (October 2022) Microsoft Licensing Brief to detail the licensing of Windows Server for use with virtualisation technologies.

This document is updated for the new per virtual machine licensing model for Windows Server, so if you’re pondering how containers are licensed, how Windows Server licensing changes with VMware or Virtuozzo, or how you license Windows Server for use on Microsoft Azure, you’ll find this useful document here: https://bit.ly/3SSzfMJ.

Azure savings plan for compute

Microsoft announce the Azure savings plan for compute. This enables customers to take advantage of better pricing across a range of Azure compute services by committing to spend a fixed hourly amount for one or three years. Once the plan is purchased the lower prices are automatically applied to eligible services across all Azure regions. However, Reserved Instances still offer the best prices for customers who are committed to a specific VM family in a specific region.

As a comparison, a D8s v4 VM running in the East US data centre has a PAYG price of $0.7520 per hour, a 1-year RI price of $0.5938 per hour (21% savings), and a 1-year savings plan price of $0.6314 (16% savings).

This is a useful page to get started on the Azure savings plan for compute: https://bit.ly/3gipyJp, and this is where you’ll find the detail on how to buy a plan and how discounts are applied etc: https://bit.ly/3VDy1XO.

General Availability of Viva Sales

Microsoft announce that Viva Sales is generally available as of 3 October, 2022. Viva as a brand is about improving the employee experience, with the Viva Suite aimed at employees in any role across a business.

Viva Sales, however, is tailored to improve the employee experience for a specific role – sellers – and it enables these users to use Office 365 and Teams to automatically capture, access and register data into a CRM system, eliminating the administrative burden of manual data entry.

Viva Sales is included in Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Premium licences, and is also available as a standalone licence priced at $40 per user per month.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3fZC28I, with links to other useful resources such as pricing information and an “Introduction to Viva Sales” course on Microsoft Learn.

Microsoft Teams Premium

Microsoft announce Teams Premium, which will be in Public Preview in December and generally available in February 2023. It will be licensed via an add-on to Teams with an expected price of $10 per user per month.

In terms of functionality, expect AI features such as intelligent recaps to summarise meetings with actions, and live translation for captions, as well as options for keeping confidential meetings confidential, help in streamlining registration workflows, and the availability of rich analytics.

The announcement article, which you can find here: https://bit.ly/3yJGhfi, has a lot of additional information on the feature set, and this second article is useful for comparing the features existing Office 365/Microsoft 365 customers will have access to, compared to the additional Teams Premium licence: https://bit.ly/3VzqYzm.

General Availability of Power Pages

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Power Pages at the Ignite conference on 12 October, 2022. Power Pages is the fifth product in the Power Platform family and, in common with the other members of the Power Platform family, is a low-code solution which enables any user to create a secure website, but with advanced capabilities for customisation by professional developers as required.

From a licensing perspective, you license a website for authenticated users and/or anonymous users, either on a subscription basis or on a pay-as-you-go basis. There is tiered pricing available for the subscription licences which starts at $200 for 100 authenticated users per site per month and $75 for 500 anonymous users per site per month, and which will be available to purchase from 1 November, 2022. The PAYG meters accrue charges against an Azure Subscription and cost $4 per authenticated user per site per month and $0.30 per anonymous user per site per month.

You can find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3TjBMja, pricing information here: https://bit.ly/3MBzV7a, and a whole host of useful licensing information here: https://bit.ly/3eyEcvH.

Windows Server 2022 Licensing Guide

There’s a brand new (October 2022) Windows Server 2022 Licensing Guide. It’s a comprehensive document which also includes the new option for licensing Windows Server by virtual machine.

Find this guide here: https://bit.ly/3M8KrTq.

Dynamics 365 Business Central On-premises Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (September 2022) Dynamics 365 Business Central On-premises Licensing Guide. There aren’t major changes – just refinements in language and other minor amendments. As usual, there’s detail in the Change Log on page 17.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3Dnfg4e.

Flexible Virtualization Benefit Licensing Guide

There’s a brand new (October 2022) Licensing Guide for the new Flexible Virtualization Benefit. This allows customers licensed with Software Assurance or Software Subscriptions to use their licences with Authorized Outsourcers’ shared servers. The guide contains an overview of the benefit itself, a definition of Authorized Outsourcers, and details about using the benefit with SQL Server, Windows Server, and the desktop products. There are also FAQ and Resources sections at the end.

Find this new guide here: https://bit.ly/3T1kDe5.

Flexible Virtualization benefit and Windows Server VM licensing

Microsoft announce that there will be two significant licensing changes coming in October 2022.

Firstly, the outsourcing terms will be expanded via the Flexible Virtualization benefit which will allow customers to use their eligible licences with any Authorized Outsourcer’s shared hardware. Eligible licences are licences purchased through a Volume Licensing agreement with active Software Assurance, or Server Subscriptions purchased through CSP, and Authorized Outsourcers are any partners offering hosted solutions – apart from the Listed Providers (Alibaba, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft).

The second change is an additional licensing option for Windows Server for customers with active SA or Server Subscriptions: rather than being restricted to licensing the whole physical server, these customers will be able to choose to license at the virtual machine level – both in their own data centres or with an Authorized Outsourcer.

For more information, see the partner announcement here: https://bit.ly/3wFgQdw, or the customer announcement here: https://bit.ly/3CF8eaT.