Category Archives: Uncategorized

Office 365 ProPlus Updates

Microsoft announce changes to the way updates in Office 365 ProPlus are managed.

Firstly, the channel names are changed: from “Current Channel” to “Monthly Channel”, “First Release for Deferred Channel” to “Semi-annual Channel (Pilot)” and “Deferred Channel” to “Semi-annual Channel (Broad)”. The names tell us of another change – that unless you’re on the Monthly Channel, updates will now be twice a year rather than three times. This aligns with Windows 10, and updates will be in March and September. And the final change is that Semi-annual channel releases will now be supported for 18 months rather than 12 months.

These updates also apply to Visio Pro for Office 365 and the Project Online desktop client and will take effect in September 2017.

The full announcement is here: http://bit.ly/2qYqGD6 where you’ll also find recommended next steps and exact dates for the upcoming schedule of Office ProPlus releases.

Dynamics 365 Available in UK Data Centres

Microsoft makes Dynamics 365 available in UK data centres – find the full announcement here: http://bit.ly/2qI1VyO.

Power BI Premium

Microsoft announce Power BI Premium, a new member of the Power BI family joining Power BI Desktop and Power BI Pro. So, what’s new? Well, today, Power BI Desktop is free and it’s aimed at personal use, while Power BI Pro costs $9.99 per user per month and enables collaboration. Under the current licensing, if an organisation has a few users who publish reports and many users who consume them, then everyone needs to be licensed with a Power BI Pro licence.

Power BI Premium will be generally available late in the second quarter of 2017 and will be licensed by capacity. This means that a Power BI Pro licence will still be required for users publishing reports, but consumers will no longer need to be licensed if their organisation is covered by Power BI Premium. And how does the capacity licensing work? Well, it’s by node and luckily there’s a calculator available to work out just how many nodes you’re likely to need based on your estimated number of Pro, frequent and occasional users. Find the calculator here: http://bit.ly/2qTdPlG.

But what’s a node?! A server? An end-user endpoint? No. Properly called capacity nodes, they’re just a way of purchasing a certain number of virtual cores, memory and bandwidth, dedicated to a customer, that will be sufficient to power the required BI system. At launch, there will be three sizes – inspiringly called P1, P2 and P3 which, for example, give access to 8, 16 and 32 virtual cores. There’s a Microsoft Power BI Premium Whitepaper which gives you some more information on this and you can find it in the “Other” section of the “Application Servers” area in our Licensing Guides emporium at: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

But that’s not the end of the story. There’s also an option for customers who want a hybrid solution and that’s possible with the new Power BI Report Server. When you purchase Power BI Premium you can use the same number of cores that you’ve purchased in the cloud with Power BI Report Server on-premises.

Find the Power BI Premium announcement here: http://bit.ly/2pXo1wt.

SQL Server 2017

Microsoft announce that the next version of SQL Server will be SQL Server 2017. It’s currently at the Community Technology Preview stage and when released will be available on Windows, Linux and Docker. Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2pVaZiQ.

Microsoft Relationship Sales

Microsoft announce the Microsoft Relationship Sales solution. This links Dynamics 365 Sales with the LinkedIn Sales Navigator so that you can see LinkedIn information on Dynamics leads, contacts and accounts. It will be available from July 2017 and will cost $135 per user per month. Find the announcement here: http://bit.ly/2pSfaLS.

Microsoft Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter

The April 2017 Microsoft Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter is out. There’s just one item of licensing interest: there was a minor update to the Services Provider License Agreement on 16 April, 2017 when the definition of a Reciprocal Service Provider was included.

Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/2gbk5iR.

Per Core Licensing Volume Licensing Brief

There’s an updated (April 2017) Per Core Licensing Volume Licensing Brief from Microsoft which gets things up to date for Windows Server 2016 and System Center 2016 Core licensing. Find it in the Core Infrastructure section in our Licensing Guides emporium here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

Windows 10 S

Microsoft announce Windows 10 S – a flavour of Windows 10 Pro that is, in Microsoft’s words, “optimised for security and performance”. It does this by working only with apps from the Windows Store and having Edge as its default browser. You can pay to switch to Windows 10 Pro through the Windows Store at any time, but you can’t then go back to Windows 10 S.

This FAQ gives you a good overview: http://bit.ly/2pB32Pt.

Windows Server BYOL Marketplace Images

One way of deploying Windows Server virtual machines in Azure using the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit is to use a Marketplace image.

This is where you can find the available Bring Your Own Licence (BYOL) images and choose your ideal virtual machine configuration: http://bit.ly/2pLqPKo.

Azure StorSimple in CSP

Azure StorSimple became available through CSP in February 2017.

A reminder of what StorSimple is: a hybrid storage solution which can be deployed as a physical device or a virtual appliance, where active data is stored on-premises and cool data is pushed to the cloud.

It’s currently just the StorSimple Virtual Array that’s available through CSP and there’s an excellent article from Microsoft that explains all: http://bit.ly/2oQTnDT.

If you’ve got a particular question you may find your answer in the useful FAQ here: http://bit.ly/2oY5ayO.