If you’re an Authorized Education Partner then there’s a useful Microsoft 365 A1 FAQ document released in January 2018.
It gives you all the licensing facts around this new education offering: it’s a single licence for Office 365 A1, Windows 10 Pro Upgrade, and Intune for Education, and is a single payment of $30 per device, only available through CSP.
Find this FAQ amongst its Licensing Guide friends here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
We’ve just uploaded the latest (September 2017) Azure Stack Packaging and Pricing Datasheet to our Licensing Guides emporium (http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides). The changes are small: there’s a note added that organisations can try Azure Stack for free by downloading the Azure Stack Development Kit (ASDK), and there’s pricing included for Azure Standard Unmanaged Disks.
Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2018 was first available in November 2017, with Update 1 released on January 29th, 2018. The Visual Studio Licensing Guide (November 2017) is updated for VSTFS 2018 which now includes rights to SQL Server 2017 and is no longer available through the retail channel.
Pages 31/32 confirm that Visual Studio Express 2017 will be the last version of this product, replaced by Visual Studio Code and Visual Studio Community which are also free development products
Find this guide in our ever-growing collection of Licensing Guides here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
We’ve just updated our Licensing Guides Emporium with a SQL Server 2017 Licensing Guide. It’s got all the information you’d expect, and a useful section on licensing SQL Server in containers. Find it here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
There are two changes to the way Azure Monetary Commitment works in an Enterprise Agreement from December 2017.
Historically, Monetary Commitment was an amount paid upfront annually for the Azure consumption services which was decremented as services were used, with any unused Monetary Commitment being forfeited at the end of the year. This remains as an “Annually Prepaid Option” but now there’s a “Fully Prepaid Option” too. Under this option a customer pays for 36 months of Monetary Commitment upfront but the funds are available for the whole of the Enrolment term. This means there are also some changes in the minimum amount of Monetary Commitment required: $3,600 under the Enterprise Enrolment and $36,000 under the Server and Cloud Enrolment.
The second change is the removal of the Consumption Allowance: previously customers with a Direct EA could pay for any Azure overage at anniversary if they remained within the Consumption Allowance (50% of the original Monetary Commitment). Now all new and renewing EA customers will pay for overage on a quarterly basis.
If you want the official wording on the new rules then it’s all on pages 50 and 51 of the December 2017 Product Terms document.
Microsoft launched Azure Reserved Instances in November 2017 giving customers a more cost-effective way of buying Azure base instance virtual machines. The Azure Calculator has been updated to show relative pricing between the regular pay-as-you-go option for virtual machines and 1-year or 3-year Reserved Instances.
Find the Azure Calculator here: http://bit.ly/AzurePricingCalculator.
There’s an updated (September 2017) Dynamics 365 On-Premises Licensing Guide with just a small correction made on page 14 – details are in Appendix B. Find this guide with all its LGFs (Licensing Guide Friends) here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
The Azure Hybrid Benefit allows customers with Windows Server licences with SA to use those licences in Azure to license a base virtual machine for Windows Server. If you’re interested in knowing the potential savings this benefit can offer, then there’s an Azure Hybrid Benefit Savings Calculator here: http://bit.ly/2CJWpOf.
Note that it still works on Processor-based licences so if you’ve got Core licences then divide the number of licences by 16 when you input the number of existing licences with SA.
Microsoft 365 Enterprise was renamed from Secure Productive Enterprise in August 2017. There are some helpful licensing resources: an at-a-glance document and overview/FAQ document, but most usefully a Licensing Brief where you’ll find an overview of the products in Microsoft 365 Enterprise, the types of User SL available, as well as licensing scenarios and FAQs.
Find all of these documents here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
If you need a BizTalk 2016 Licensing Datasheet then we’ve just added one to our Licensing Guides emporium. Get an overview of the editions, the licensing models, License Mobility through SA, and licensing for virtualisation and non-production use.
Find this datasheet here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.