Category Archives: Uncategorized

Changes to Office 365 E5 Components

There are some changes to Office 365 E5 components announced by Microsoft. First of all, there’s a new component – Office 365 Advanced Compliance – which is available as a standalone plan or included in Office 365 E5. This now gathers together Office 365 Advanced eDiscovery and Customer Lockbox (previously available as standalone plans) and the brand-new Office 365 Advanced Data Compliance functionality which, as Microsoft puts it: “applies machine learning to help customers find and retain important data while eliminating trivial, redundant and obsolete data that could cause risk if compromised.”

Then there’s the new Office 365 Threat Intelligence functionality, also available as a standalone plan or as a component of Office 365 E5. And what’s this? Well, there’s a dashboard to help customers understand the threat landscape for their organisation, and integration with other Office 365 security features to provide an analysis that includes the top targeted users, malware frequency, as well as security recommendations related to a particular organisation.

Find the Microsoft announcement with plenty of links to other information here: http://bit.ly/2nYhPBe.

Azure VM Backup Options

April Fools Post 2017

Microsoft announce new backup options for Azure Windows Server virtual machines. If you’ve got an on-premises Windows server farm then new Cloud License for On-premises Windows Networks (CLOWN) rights allow you to run a backup of the Azure virtual machine on your own Windows Server hardware.

Find the announcement about these new CLOWN rights here: http://bit.ly/AprilFool2017.

Azure TCO Calculator

There’s an Azure TCO Calculator from Microsoft in preview so that you can evaluate potential cost savings if you migrate on-premises application workloads to Azure. You specify the details of your existing infrastructure, various cost assumptions you want the tool to work with, and then you’re given a report that shows on-premises v Azure costs breakdown summaries.

Find the tool here: http://bit.ly/2nmH2qS.

Azure Stack Licensing

Microsoft release more details about how Azure Stack will be licensed when it’s available in mid 2017. And what is Azure Stack? Think Azure Services running on on-premises hardware. This useful Microsoft blog post (http://bit.ly/2nmBL2q) explains that Azure Stack will be charged on a consumption basis (like Azure Services normally are) but prices will be lower since customers are providing their own hardware and facilities.

Azure Stack hardware will be available from Dell, EMC, HPE and Lenovo and this too will be available on a pay-as-you-go basis if required.

Microsoft Bookings

Microsoft Bookings starts rolling out worldwide to customers who have Office 365 Business Premium subscriptions. There’s an app for iOS now and one for Android shortly, and customers who have Office 365 E3 or E5 subscriptions are likely to get access to Microsoft Bookings in the future. Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2n40mGV.

Dynamics 365 Existing Customer License Transition Guide

There’s a useful “Microsoft Dynamics 365 Existing Customer License Transition Guide” released from Microsoft with information on: options for customers now that CRM Online SKUs are no longer available, how and when you can upgrade to Dynamics 365 with existing CRM Online licences and what use rights you get in a mixed deployment, who’s eligible for the special transition SKUs for how long, and when Add-on and From SA User SLs are the right thing. It’s here with the rest of the excellent Dynamics 365 Licensing Guides: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Updated Visual Studio Licensing Guide

There’s an updated Visual Studio Licensing Guide for the release of Visual Studio 2017. There aren’t major changes – just remember that “Visual Studio Enterprise Subscription” is the new name for Visual Studio Enterprise with an MSDN Subscription. As usual, find the guide with all its Licensing Guide friends here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

 

Moving Azure Subscriptions to CSP

There are benefits to acquiring Azure Services through CSP – your Azure resources (virtual machines etc) can all be managed by a partner and you can pay monthly for what you’ve actually consumed. So, can you migrate an existing Azure Subscription (and all your resources) in an EA or Open agreement, for example, to CSP? The short answer? No. You need to move resources from the old Subscription to the new one manually.

For more information – and instructions – this Microsoft blog post is well worth a look: http://bit.ly/2lvwn9l.

Visual Studio 2017 is Available

Microsoft announce that Visual Studio 2017 is available for download (http://bit.ly/2mfLJP3).

The product lineup is pretty much the same – just note the name changes where the “with MSDN” is replaced by “Subscription” – so Visual Studio Enterprise 2015 with MSDN becomes Visual Studio Enterprise Subscription, for example.

This page is useful to get an overview of the current offerings and to see what’s available as one of the newer Cloud Subscriptions: http://bit.ly/2mPGlpr.