Azure Reservations for the Azure SQL Database service became available earlier in August 2018 (see our blog post here: http://bit.ly/2KROzpp). If you want to understand more about how the reservation discount is applied automatically to running Azure SQL Databases then this is a useful article: http://bit.ly/2vX61UR.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Visio Visual for Power BI available
Microsoft announce (July 2018) that Visio Visual for Power BI is generally available. This allows a user to use Visio Online and Power BI together to illustrate and compare data as both diagrams and visualisations in one place. From a licensing perspective, Office 365 subscribers can use five free trial instances of Visio Visual and after that, any user can view visuals, and users licensed with Visio Online Plan 1 or Plan 2 can edit a Visio Visual in Power BI.
Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2P9zTom.
Azure Marketplace Invoicing
Third-party services purchased through the Azure Marketplace are typically invoiced separately in an Enterprise Agreement, outside of Monetary Commitment. From 1 March, 2018 there were some Linux Support options and Linux virtual machines that were changed to consume Monetary Commitment.
Find the announcement and list of relevant services here: http://bit.ly/2Nn74Ed.
Government Licensing Guides
We’ve added a new section to our Licensing Guides emporium for documents to do with the Government licensing programs.
Find them in the Volume Licensing Programs section at: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Managing Azure Reservations
You can buy an Azure Reservation to save money on the infrastructure charges (compute) for virtual machines or Azure SQL Databases. After purchase you can make adjustments to that reservation: change the Subscription it applies to, split a single reservation into two reservations, add or change users who can manage a reservation, and optimise for VM size flexibility or capacity priority.
Find a useful article with instructions here: http://bit.ly/2PnMOUC.
The Ultimate Guide to Windows Server on Azure
This not-too-long guide from Microsoft might be useful if you’re starting to think about taking Windows Server workloads to Azure. It outlines possible benefits, how to decide whether to migrate or extend a server farm, and of course the cost savings associated with the Azure Hybrid Benefit. Find it here: http://bit.ly/2KZtwCp.
Microsoft 365 Business FAQ
If you’re interested in Microsoft 365 Business then there’s an FAQ which may be useful. From a licensing perspective it answers questions such as: Can I add Office 365 Add-ons to Microsoft 365 Business (Yes); Can I add Phone System and Calling Plans (No); and can Microsoft 365 Business customers create hosted Windows 10 VMs (No).
Find the FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2wfBH7c.
Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (July 2018) Dynamics 365 Business Central Licensing Guide. There are no major changes – just the tidying up of some Business Central branding throughout, but if you like to have the latest copy to hand, then find it as usual at http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
Managing Windows 10 CSP Subscriptions
If you have responsibility for deploying and managing Windows 10 Subscriptions in CSP then there are three interesting documents that you might find useful: An Introduction to Windows 10 Subscriptions in CSP; The Role of Azure AD in Windows 10 Cloud Subscriptions; and Windows 10 Upgrade Benefits for CSP Customers.
Find all of these documents with their overviews here: http://bit.ly/2P1h6ML.
Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide
There’s an updated (July 2018) Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide. There are just a few corrections made to this version which you can find detailed in the Change Log on page 50. Find this Guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.