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.
Category Archives: Uncategorized
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.
Azure SQL Database Reserved Capacity
Microsoft announce the General Availability of Azure SQL Database Reserved Capacity for single and elastic pool databases. If you’re familiar with Reserved Instances for virtual machines, then this is the same kind of thing for the Azure SQL Database service. Essentially, you can save money by prepaying for SQL Database vCores for a one or three-year term. In addition, you can bring your own SQL Server licences (either via active SA or the new Server Subscriptions) for an even more cost-effective solution.
SQL Database Reserved Capacity shares other similarities with Reserved Instances too: a Reservation can be assigned to either a single Azure Subscription or shared, and there’s vCore Size Flexibility as well where the Reservation can be applied dynamically to any databases and elastic pools within a performance tier and region.
To find out more, find the Microsoft announcement here: http://bit.ly/2vJP2oZ and information on how to buy Reservations here: http://bit.ly/2P8Pjdp.
Dynamics 365 Business Central October 2018 Updates
The next major update to the Dynamics products is due in October 2018. At this time Dynamics 365 Business Central will be available in the cloud, on-premises and in hybrid deployments. Customers will be able to pick any of these deployment options or use an existing on-premises solution of Dynamics GP, Dynamics NAV, or Dynamics SL and connect to the cloud through Business Central. Dynamics NAV becomes Dynamics 365 Business Central On-Premises and Business Central licences will continue to be sold through CSP. For further reading, find the full article here: http://bit.ly/2OuTij3.
Office 2019 On-Premises Release Details
We know Office 2019 is due out in the second half of 2018. The recently updated release details confirm the products that will be available (usual apps as well as Exchange, SharePoint and Skype for Business servers) and that there will be 5 years of mainstream support and 2 years of extended support. Technically speaking, Office 2019 will only run on Windows 10 and will only be available with Click-to-Run installation technology.
Find the release details here: http://bit.ly/2nw9gOx, an FAQ about Click-to-Run here: http://bit.ly/2KIIT16 and general Office 2019 FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2w3TCxA.