There’s an updated (April 2020) Office 365 ProPlus Licensing Brief. The main changes are to include additional options for deploying Office 365 ProPlus in shared public cloud environments, and to update for the changes to the licensing terms for Outsourcing Software Management in October 2019.
Find this updated Licensing Brief here: https://bit.ly/ProPlusVLApr2020
There’s an updated (May 2020) Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide which just includes a small clarification on the Team Members application module on page 6.
Find this updated Guide here: https://bit.ly/D365BusCenLGMay2020
There’s an updated (May 2020) Power Apps Licensing Guide. The main change is some additional wording added to the Power Virtual Agents section clarifying terms such as a “billed session” and a “turn” on page 15. As usual, the full changes are detailed in the Change Log on page 24.
Find this updated Licensing Guide here: https://bit.ly/PowAppsLGMay2020
There’s an updated (April 2020) Licensing Brief detailing how to license the Windows desktop operating system for use with virtual machines. It covers the different licences available, the different options for deploying Windows VMs, and a whole host of licensing scenarios.
Find this licensing brief here: https://bit.ly/WindOSVMsApr2020
The Microsoft 365 E3 – Unattended licence allows a bot to run repetitive tasks in a Windows client/Office app without user intervention.
This new (May 2020) Licensing Brief has some useful introductory information, a section on licensing scenarios showing when this new licence is needed, and an FAQ.
Find this licensing brief here: https://bit.ly/M365ULic
Microsoft launched their Robotic Process Automation (RPA) capability in April, 2020. As a reminder, RPA helps users to automate tasks by recording actions to be played back later, either with human interaction (known as “attended”) or without (“unattended”). if you want to find out more about this capability, then there’s a new (April 2020) Licensing Brief which directs you to RPA documentation and resources, and includes a number of FAQs with a full section dedicated to licensing and pricing questions.
Find this Licensing Brief here: https://bit.ly/RPVPowAutApr2020
If you want to increase your knowledge around Azure Cost Management then there’s a new Learning Path in Microsoft Learn. Snazzily entitled “Control Azure spending and manage bills with Azure Cost Management + Billing” it consists of three modules: Design for efficiency and operations in Azure, Predict costs and optimize spending for Azure, and Analyze costs and create budgets with Azure Cost Management.
Find this free Learning Path here: https://bit.ly/2ylYh3j.
The May 2020 Product Terms is updated with clarification on how to license SQL Server running within a container. Essentially, the container is considered to be a virtual machine and the usual licensing rules apply. Find the text on page 30 and the latest Product Terms document here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.
Microsoft announce a new flavour of Microsoft 365 E3 – one that you can assign to a Bot to run repetitive tasks without user intervention.
The May 2020 Online Services Terms gives the low-down on the licensing: the Bot may use the suite in a physical or virtual machine including Windows Virtual Desktop, licence reassignment follows the same rules as if the Bot were a (real) user, and it’s an (illegal) multiplexing scenario if the Bot carries out activities on behalf of an unlicensed user or device.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3d9zqhW, and get the current Online Services Terms here: http://bit.ly/MSproductterms.
If you want a good overview of how you can prevent unexpected charges for the Azure services then this article has some useful information: https://bit.ly/2WiZcte. It’s a 12 minute read with the following sections: getting estimated costs, monitoring costs, optimising and reducing costs, and analysing unexpected charges.