Microsoft announce Visio Online. This allows you to view Visio diagrams in a browser, working in a similar way to the other Office Online tools – but with no editing capabilities.
You can find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2lRUb7u and for information on which Office 365 licences include Visio Online (most of them) and which browsers are supported (many) then go to this FAQ page: http://bit.ly/2lNzusK.
There’s a new Premium Assurance FAQ from Microsoft. This document contains some useful information on topics such as whether System Center is covered by updates, the hardware policy for servers covered under PA, pricing information, licensing models covered, minimum purchasing periods, and whether phone or email support is included.
If Premium Assurance is of interest to you then this document is definitely worth a read and you can find it here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
The February 2017 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter is out. There’s just one item of licensing interest: the FY17 Q3 Quarterly Licensing Brief webinar is available for viewing, originally broadcast on March 2nd.
It’s worth a watch for these topics: License Mobility Update, SPLA 2017 Resources, SPE in CSP and you can find it here: http://bit.ly/2n4ROP8.
Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/2gbk5iR.
Microsoft announce that group-based licence management is now in public preview. This will offer two new services: firstly, you can assign a licence template to an Azure AD security group and then as users join and leave the group, licences are automatically assigned and removed. Secondly, you’ll be able to selectively disable components in product licences so that you can do a phased roll-out of the services of Office 365 E5 for example.
Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2lvlpF5.
Microsoft announce that Premium Assurance is available. As a reminder, this is an Add-on that you can buy for Windows Server and/or SQL Server, if you have Software Assurance, to give you an extra six years of product support. Other key facts are that you have to buy it for ALL of your Windows/SQL Servers with active SA, and the price will increase in July 2017. Find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2ms74rZ.
Confused about how to license OMS in CSP? (That’s the Operations Management + Security Suite in the Cloud Solution Provider program if you’re already confused!) There’s a useful new Microsoft article that explains all. Essentially, the OMS services are available through CSP but the SKUs aren’t – so you can buy the individual components of OMS E2, but not E2 itself with the associated discount. It’s also worth noting that you don’t get rights to System Center if you buy through CSP either.
Get the full story and some deployment examples here: http://bit.ly/2l32oW9.
If you have Windows Server licences with Software Assurance then you have the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit. This means that you can choose to use your licences to license the Windows Server part of an Azure virtual machine and so just pay for the compute cost of the VM.
If you have an EA you can deploy VMs from specific Marketplace images that are pre-configured with the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit. Without an EA you can upload a custom VM and deploy using a Resource Manager template or Azure PowerShell.
This article explains all and has some useful illustrations http://bit.ly/2lbjIbe.
Need to license Bing Maps for Enterprise?
This page is a useful overview of the different options: http://bit.ly/2kDXilP.
Do you manage the formerly-known-as-MSDN Subscriptions for your organisation? You may know that they’re now known as Visual Studio Subscriptions and there’s change afoot for the management portal.
Find an FAQ detailing what’s happening, as well as administration guides for the current VLSC and MPSA portals here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
We found an updated (September 2016) Enrollment for Education Solutions Licensing Guide where the main change is an adjustment for the renaming of DreamSpark to Microsoft Imagine.
Find this updated guide here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.