If you want an easy way to check availability of the Azure products by region then this is useful page: http://bit.ly/39S81zt. Choose the product family and region(s) and then see whether services are generally available, in preview, or slated for future availability with expected timelines.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
BizTalk Server 2020
Microsoft make BizTalk Server 2020 available with the usual Standard, Enterprise and Branch editions. Find out what’s new here: http://bit.ly/2SP8BZ1.
Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (February 2020) Dynamics 365 Mixed Reality Licensing Guide. There’s just a small change confirming the file formats that are supported when importing 3D models on page 6. Find this updated guide here: http://bit.ly/MixRealLGFeb2020.
Power Apps Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (February 2020) Power Apps Licensing Guide. There are changes for the renaming of Talent to Human Resources, and Retail to Commerce, and a correction made for the Power Apps per app default capacity where the File capacity should be 20 GB (not 2 GB), and the Log capacity should be 2 GB (not 200 MB). Find full change details, as usual, in the Change Log on page 25, and the guide itself here: http://bit.ly/PowAppsLGFeb2020.
Azure Reservations
Azure Reservations help customers to save money when they can make a duration commitment to an Azure service. Typically the duration is one or three years with, of course, the best savings to be made on a three-year commitment.
Today there are sixteen categories of Reservations ranging from Reserved Instances for virtual machines to Reserved Capacity for storage or database services, as well as Software Plans for Red Hat or SUSE Linux. Buying and managing Reservations, and understanding how discounts are applied can be confusing, but there’s some excellent Microsoft documentation available.
Find it here to dip into as you need to, or save it for the weekend and read it end-to-end: http://bit.ly/36W4KgJ.
Windows 7 End of Support resources
Windows 7 reached End of Support on 14 January, 2020. Although Microsoft’s recommendation is to upgrade to Windows 10 or move to Windows Virtual Desktop in Azure, customers may purchase Extended Security Updates to continue to receive security updates for critical and important issues. There’s a useful article if you’re intending to deploy these ESUs here: http://bit.ly/39nxuk1, and the FAQ page for Windows 7 End of Support is updated for February 2020 here: http://bit.ly/38dkWeJ.
Dynamics 365 Get Licensing Ready track
The Dynamics 365 track on Get Licensing Ready has been updated for all the recent changes up to and including February 2020, and the content has been split into two modules – Licensing the Dynamics 365 CRM applications, and Licensing the Dynamics ERP applications. Head over to GLR to learn about the licensing with video and reference material and to take a test to prove your knowledge: http://bit.ly/GLRD365.
Authorized Education Partner program update
Microsoft announce that from 1 October, 2019 the requirement for a partner to be certified as part of the Authorized Education Partner program to sell Academic licences to education customers is now ONLY a requirement in China. All partners are still required to confirm education customer eligibility before transacting Academic licences, using the Microsoft Qualified Education Users document. Find details and links here: http://bit.ly/2Ov2hDl.
Azure Cost Management: January update
Azure Cost Management helps customers to feel in control of their Azure spending and to maximise their cloud investment. There are continual innovations to the functionality available, and this January update details the latest changes including improved reporting, new ways of saving money with Azure, and recent changes to Azure usage data: http://bit.ly/2Ov9pQ9.
Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (January 2020) Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide. It’s not a major update – just some small changes to the geographic availability and licence requirements for Essentials functionality on page 10. Find this guide here: http://bit.ly/BusCentLGJan2020.