There’s an updated (October 2019) Dynamics 365 for Operations Server Licensing Guide. The main changes are for the licensing changes that will happen in October 2019: references to the Unified Operations plan are removed, and From SA User SLs become the only option for moving to the cloud. As usual, check out the Change Log for full details on page 24.
Find this Licensing Guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft announce that Planner will be added to Microsoft 365 F1 and Office 365 F1 commercial and government plans starting at the beginning of October 2019. The Planner functionality is the same as in higher level plans, and there’s no action for a customer to take.
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2lStHb5.
If you’re interested in the next wave of Dynamics 365 releases, due in October 2019, then you may find this page useful where there are some quick guides and videos showing the new capabilities and features: http://bit.ly/2lZJgNU.
The set of features that make up Azure Cost Management is constantly evolving and the most recent innovations include the introduction of filtered budgets, the ability to save and share customised views, and more flexibility for creating and managing Subscriptions with the limit of 50 Subscriptions per EA Account increased to 200.
Find the latest news from the ACM team here: http://bit.ly/2moqboR.
Microsoft announce upcoming changes to three Software Assurance benefits. Here’s the summary and key dates:
Planning Services
Training Vouchers
24 x 7 Problem Resolution Support
And the reason for these changes? There’s a useful “Software Assurance changes overview” document which you can find in the “Volume Licensing Programs” section of our Licensing Guides emporium here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
In this document you’ll find that customers are encouraged to move to FastTrack for deployment services, that Microsoft Learn provides some excellent Azure training courses – although new training and certification offerings are in development, and that Microsoft’s future overall support strategy focuses on the Unified Support model.
The Software Assurance website is also updated with this news here: http://bit.ly/2kXtbbA.
There’s an updated (October 2019) Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide. You’ll find it updated for the PowerApps licensing changes that will happen in October 2019, as well as a useful table added on page 10 to show the difference in use rights between the different levels of Business Central licences.
Find this guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Microsoft announce that a monthly payment option is now available for some Azure Reservations. There aren’t any additional costs for choosing to pay monthly rather than upfront, although if you’re in a non-US-dollar market the actual monthly payment may vary dependent on the exchange rate. Monthly payments are available for the following services: virtual machines, SQL Database, SQL Data Warehouse, Cosmos DB, and the App Service stamp fee, and it’s an option you select when you buy the Reservation from the Azure Management Portal.
Find some good pictures of the process and some FAQs here: http://bit.ly/2maim6g.
The original announcement is here: http://bit.ly/2lILGR0.
There’s an updated (July 2019) Windows 7 and Office 2010 End of Support FAQ. Use it to answer questions such as: which programs are the Extended Security Updates available in (currently EA/EAS/EES, but CSP too by the end of 2019); who’s eligible for free ESUs (EA/EAS customers with active Windows E5 or Microsoft 365 E5/E5 Security subscriptions); and in which Windows environments is Office 365 ProPlus supported (it depends, see pages 12/13).
Find this document, as usual, here: http://bitly/MSLicensingGuides.
There are several different editions of Windows 10. If you want a detailed comparison chart showing the differences between the editions, then you can find one here: http://bit.ly/2H9XbJ6.
If you want to learn more about Azure Cost Management to optimise spending in Azure, then have a look at the ACM YouTube channel. There’s a whole host of playlists, including a Quickstart one for a useful collection of short introductory videos. Find the channel here: http://bit.ly/2U55fA7.