Category Archives: Uncategorized

Reservation utilisation alerts

Reservations are a great way of saving money in Azure if you can commit to a 1-year or 3-year term for services such as virtual machine compute. However, savings are only made if the Reservations are used, stopping Pay-As-You-Go charges. Administrators have historically been able to view utilisation rates in the Azure Management Portal, but there’s now a new alert feature which sends an email whenever a Reservation exhibits low utilisation.

See the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3qZSxah, and find information on how to set these alerts up here: https://bit.ly/44ocFRN.

Azure Standard Support plan offer extended

Customers buying their Azure services through an Enterprise Agreement or via the MCA-E have long been eligible for a free 12-month Azure Standard Support plan, and Microsoft confirm that this offer will be extended from 1 July, 2023 to 31 December, 2023.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3JA2cuD, terms of the offer here: https://bit.ly/3CTFrhq, and a useful comparison of all the Azure Support plans here: https://bit.ly/44i3x1h.

Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (June 2023) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with a couple of updates. Firstly, the Base and Attach licences table is updated on page 4 to show that Business Central Premium licences qualify as Base licences for Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Customer Service Enterprise Attach licences. Then there’s additional information added on pages 57 to 59 to clarify the Power Platform use rights included in the Dynamics 365 product licences.

Get this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3NbJGv6.

Azure Savings Dashboard

There’s a Power BI dashboard available for customers who want to see the savings they’ve made in Azure by purchasing Reservations or Savings Plans. Find out more and download the Power BI file with setup instructions here: https://bit.ly/3Il5r8R.

Azure Advisor custom lookback period

Azure Advisor can help with recommendations on how you can save money in Azure, and one thing it does is to look back at virtual machine usage to see if it can identify idle or underutilized virtual machines. The default lookback period is seven days, but now customers can adjust the lookback period to 14, 21, 30, 60, or 90 days if it’s more relevant for their business. Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3pULS0s.

Power Platform Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (May 2023) Power Platform Licensing Guide which adds tiered pricing for the AI Builder credit packs. The packs include 1,000,000 AI Builder credits per month and if you buy under 10 packs they are $500 each, if you buy 10-49 packs they are $375 each, and for 50 or more packs, they are $250 each.

Find the details on page 20, and get the updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3LrdNMJ.

Requesting a Power Apps licence (makers)

Following on from the introduction of the facility for users to request a Power Apps licence when they need it (see our blog: https://bit.ly/43cMw87) is the new facility for makers of the app to request a licence for users as they share the app.

Makers are warned when their app has premium components that will require a Power Apps licence and the process for the IT administrators is exactly the same as when a user requests a licence.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3o1YdQh.

Windows 11 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated-for-Windows 11 (April 2023) Desktop Operating Systems Licensing Guide. It’s a useful document covering the different Windows editions, device and user licensing options, as well as downgrade rights and Volume Licensing Activation.

Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3B8xvZb.

App Governance included in Defender for Cloud Apps

Microsoft announce that from 1 June, 2023 the App Governance Add-on will  be included in Microsoft 365 E5, E5 Security, or any other licence that includes Defender for Cloud Apps.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3o1bZ5G.

Calculate EA Azure Savings Plan cost savings

There’s a useful article here to help EA customers to manually calculate the savings they’ve made from the purchase of Azure Savings Plans: https://bit.ly/3MCBmUU. Full instructions are given to download the amortised usage and charges file, prepare an Excel spreadsheet and then do some calculations to determine the savings.