There’s an updated (January 2025) CAL Suite Bridges licensing guidance document from Microsoft. Bridge CALs were first introduced in 2011 to help Enterprise Agreement customers maintain their enterprise-wide commitment to the Core and Enterprise CAL Suites as they moved to the cloud. This document has an overview, some scenarios, as well as tables taken from the Product Terms for CAL/CML equivalencies and prerequisites.
Find this document here: https://bit.ly/3Ql8std.
There’s a new (February 2025) Base and Additive CALs licensing guidance document from Microsoft which is an evolution of the October 2020 Microsoft Server Base and Additive CALS Overview Licensing Brief document. It’s broadly the same information covered, but all the diagrams showing the layered structure of Base and Additive CALs are removed to be replaced with more comprehensive explanations and links to the Product Terms.
Find this new document here: https://bit.ly/4b5Lzn3.
There’s an updated (February 2025) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide with just one small change: there’s a link to the Outsourcing Software Management Licensing Brief added to the Dual Use Rights section on page 45.
Find this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/4jMma5R.
There’s a slightly updated Windows Server 2025 Licensing Guide which corrects a couple of errors. Firstly, the CAL table on page 12 now has the correct combination of CAL and Server versions, and secondly the requirement for 16 Core licences per customer is removed on page 4 – although it remains in another couple of places.
Grab this updated guide here: https://bit.ly/40JyIlW.
There’s a new (February 2025) Dynamics 365 Contact Center licensing guidance document from Microsoft. It’s got the fundamental licensing information you’d expect as well as useful sections on example scenarios, integration with other products, and FAQs.
Find this document here: https://bit.ly/42QmpHi.
There’s a new (January 2025) Subscription License Suites document. It’s a slightly modified version of what you’d find in the Product Terms to document what components are in which suites, but more usefully organised.
Find this document here: https://bit.ly/3PZEryW.
There’s a new (January 2025) Microsoft 365 Apps licensing guidance document. It’s pretty comprehensive, covering all sorts of licensing bits and bobs to do with the Microsoft 365 Apps, and includes an FAQ at the end.
Find this document here: https://bit.ly/4hB2osg.
There’s a new (January 2025) licensing guidance document for Microsoft Defender. It’s an introductory-level document but might be useful to start you on the road to understand the licensing of Microsoft Defender for client and server endpoints.
Find this new guide here: https://bit.ly/3EgYtCy.
The Microsoft Cost Management tools are designed to help organisations to get the most from their cloud investments. If you’re interested in knowing the improvements Microsoft made to these tools in 2024 in the areas of cost visibility, cost allocation, and cost optimization, then this article is a good read: https://bit.ly/4jsRpCM.
Microsoft give an update on the upcoming licensing for Entra ID Governance for Guests: it will be a consumption model charged at $0.75 per monthly governed identity, and will be available in the second quarter of 2025.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3WuzCS2, with a useful article on Entra ID Governance licensing fundamentals here: https://bit.ly/4gb202D.