Category Archives: Uncategorized

Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (April 2019) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide which incorporates the changes to Dynamics 365 storage and the introduction of the Customer Insights app. There’s also a useful table on page 2 reminding you of changes for this year, and several tables in the appendices have had extra detail added to them to give further clarity on what rights are included with which licences.

You’ll find the change log on page 57 if you want to work through all the changes in detail. Get this Licensing Guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Microsoft Customer Agreement

The Microsoft Customer Agreement is Microsoft’s latest agreement that gives customers a framework within which to purchase their products and services. It’s a non-expiring contract and is currently available for purchases made through the Microsoft Store for Business.

From March 2019 it’s also the agreement that customers in eligible countries can use if they want to buy Azure services through their internal Microsoft representative.

Read more about this new agreement and the new commerce experience it facilitates here: http://bit.ly/2Isb0E6 and/or check out the agreement itself (in the language of your choice) here: http://bit.ly/2TS0Anu.

Windows 10 Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (February 2019) Windows 10 Licensing Guide. The main changes are a Per User Qualifying Operating Systems table added on page 7, and a section on Windows 10 Education Activation added on page 16.

Find this Licensing Guide with hundreds of other Microsoft Licensing Guides that we’ve collected over the years here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Visual Studio 2019

Microsoft announce the General Availability of Visual Studio 2019 with the usual editions available to download: Community (free), and Professional and Enterprise for users with the relevant standard or monthly cloud subscription. Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2OGNLHI.

Visual Studio 2019 for Mac is also available, in the same editions. licensed by the same subscriptions. Find that announcement here: http://bit.ly/2HWCa6R.

Azure Cost Management

Azure Cost Management is a native Azure solution to help customers manage cloud spend. It includes tools to help track costs over the course of a month and gives a variety of ways to analyse data, as well as allowing budgetsto be set.

The Azure Cost Management tools are free and currently available to EA and Microsoft Customer Agreement customers, as well as being in public preview for customers buying through azure.com.

Future developments include expanding eligible users (CSP partners and customers) and functionality (allowing customers to manage AWS spend by the end of the second quarter of 2019).

Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2JyhqUA.

Windows Virtual Desktop Public Preview

Microsoft announce that Windows Virtual Desktop is now in public preview.

This new Azure service will allow customers to run Windows 7, Windows 10 or Windows Server desktops and provide free Extended Security Updates for customers choosing Windows 7.

Customers will already be licensed for the client desktops if they have Microsoft 365 F1/E3/E5, Windows 10 E3/E5 or Windows VDA licences, and for Windows Server desktops if they’ve got RDS CALs. Reserved Instances may also be used to optimise costs for the infrastructure.

This site (http://bit.ly/2HPbqo2) has all the information as well as a video that gives an excellent overview of the service.

System Center 2019 Feature Updates

System Center 2019 is generally available and there’s more detail added to the original announcement about the frequency of feature updates.

System Center 2019 moves to the Long Term Servicing Channel but new features are delivered every six months during the mainstream support windows via Update Rollup releases for which you don’t need Software Assurance.

Customers will be eligible to move to System Center 2019 from the previous LTSC release (System Center 2016) as well as the last two Semi-Annual Channel releases (1801 and 1807).

Find the article here: http://bit.ly/2T7YfQN.

Home Use Program FAQ

There’s an updated FAQ on the Home Use Program with two main items of interest.

Firstly, the number of qualifying Office 365/Microsoft 365 licences that education or non-profit customers need is reduced to 2,000 to match the requirements for commercial or government customers.

Secondly, there are instructions added for IT administrators to manage the HUP benefit through the Microsoft Store for Business.

Find the FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2Y45JrL.

General Availability of System Center 2019

Microsoft announce the General Availability of System Center 2019 with no changes to the licensing or pricing.

There will no longer be Semi-Annual Channel releases, but new features will be delivered through Update Rollups. Note that System Center Configuration Manager will continue with a current branch release cadence of three times per year.

Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2T7YfQN.