Windows 10 upgrade licences in education

From November 1, 2020 customers who have purchased Microsoft 365 A3/A5 or Windows 10 Enterprise A3/A5 through CSP can upgrade from Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Education, and page 42 of the November 2020 Product Terms is updated with this change.

Partners will need to submit a support request to get a Windows 10 Pro Education key which is installed by the customer and then, when the device joins the tenant domain, it is automatically upgraded to Windows 10 Education.

Get a step-by-step guide to the process and an FAQ here: https://bit.ly/36nkkUp, and a useful overview of the Windows 10 editions for education customers here: https://bit.ly/3lfBqJQ.

Power Apps Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (November 2020) Power Apps Licensing Guide. The main updates are for the renaming of the Common Data Service to Dataverse, and the general availability of Dataverse for Teams.

Find the updated guide here: https://bit.ly/3nS7OTZ, and more information on Dataverse on our blog: https://bit.ly/370lSUD.

New constrained vCPU VMs available

Microsoft announce the availability of some new constrained vCPU capable virtual machines. In this type of VM the vCPU count can be constrained to a half or a quarter of the original VM size allowing customers to reduce the cost of software licensing.

For instance, in the E8-4as v4 virtual machine there are 4 active vCPUs and 8 underlying vCPUs, and licensing for SQL Server is constrained to the active vCPU count, with only the operating system cost based on the underlying vCPUs.

Find the announcement regarding the most recent additions to the family here: https://bit.ly/3kUnbsX, and see all the VMs of this type, and their pricing, by searching for “constrained” on this page: https://bit.ly/3fofzxL.

Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux generally available

Microsoft announce that the Azure Hybrid Benefit for Linux is now generally available after a preview phase. This means that customers can bring their own Red Hat Enterprise Linux and SUSE Linux Enterprise Server subscriptions to a virtual machine in Azure and just pay for the infrastructure charges. Customers can apply this Azure Hybrid Benefit to either existing or new virtual machines.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3pRFwe0, and details on exactly how the Azure Hybrid Benefit applies to Linux virtual machines here: https://bit.ly/2Tqh4S5.

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare

Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare is added to the November 2020 Product Terms.

This is an add-on licence with a variety of qualifying licences dependent on which healthcare scenarios are important to you in the areas of enhanced patient engagement, empowering health team collaboration, or improved clinical and operational insights.

The licence is available through the Enterprise Agreement and costs $95 per user per month. The different qualifying licences and the scenarios they light up are detailed in a pricing datasheet which you can find here: https://bit.ly/3976nwv, and there’s a useful overview datasheet on the Microsoft Cloud for Healthcare solution here: https://bit.ly/370gmRI.

Advanced Communications changes

Microsoft launched Advanced Communications in August 2020 to support larger Teams meetings, custom-branded lobbies, and integration with Compliance Recording and Contact Center APIs.

There are a couple of changes to be aware of: an Advanced Communications licence is now not required for the Compliance Recording API and can be used until 31 January 2021 at no additional charge, and the Contact Center API is no longer a component of Advanced Communications.

Find details of these changes here: https://bit.ly/2Uajvsg where you’ll also find a useful FAQ.

In addition, the temporary increase of limits in Teams meetings is extended to all customers until January 1, 2021 – find details of that here: https://bit.ly/3pQv3PP.

Common Data Service is now Dataverse

Microsoft announce that the Common Data Service (where you securely store and manage data that’s used by the Dynamics products, for example) has been rebranded as Microsoft Dataverse.

At the same time, Dataverse for Teams (formerly known as Project Oakdale) is also generally available. This is a subset of Dataverse capabilities included as a built-in data platform for Teams that, along with tools such as the new Power Apps app for Teams, enables customers to build low-code apps, automate processes, and deploy chatbots without leaving Teams.

Find the Dataverse announcement here: https://bit.ly/399Xv9x, and an overview of what you can now do in Teams here: https://bit.ly/35RmPPy.