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.
OMS in CSP
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.
Azure Hybrid Use Benefit
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.
Bing Maps Licensing Options
Need to license Bing Maps for Enterprise?
This page is a useful overview of the different options: http://bit.ly/2kDXilP.
Visual Studio Subscription Management Resources
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.
EES Licensing Guide (September 2016)
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.
Windows Server 2016 Licensing Datasheet
There’s an updated (2017) licensing datasheet for Windows Server 2016. The layout is reworked and information on Storage Server, MultiPoint Server and Hyper-V Server is removed. Find this datasheet in the Core Infrastructure section in http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.
February 2017 SPUR
The Services Provider Use Rights (SPUR) document is no longer released monthly – just on an as-needed basis.
There IS a new one for February 2017 which is updated for release management rights in Visual Studio (page 28) and adds Team Member, Sales and Customer Service SALs for Dynamics 365 (page 13).
February 2017 Product Terms and OST Changes
There are VDA per User Add-on SLs added to the February 2017 Product Terms document. These are designed to be added on to VDA Device SLs and follow the same rules as the Windows 10 Enterprise E3 and E5 Add-ons. See pages 38 and 42-43 of this document.
The February 2017 Online Services Terms document adds some clarity around Dynamics 365 licensing. Firstly, external users don’t need an SL if they’re using the Operations service, but if they’re using Dynamics 365 clients to access the other services then they do. And secondly, it’s confirmed that if you’re licensed for Dynamics 365 Business edition then you don’t have the right to install and use Dynamics 365 on-premises server software. See page 3.
Microsoft Hosting and CSP Newsletter
The January 2017 Hosting and Cloud Service Provider Newsletter is out. There’s just one item of licensing interest:
the License Mobility through SA Verification form has been updated so that customers can now email completed forms to Microsoft.
Download the latest version of the form here (http://bit.ly/VLForms) – look for “License Verification” as the document type.
Sign up for this free newsletter here: http://bit.ly/2gbk5iR.