Tag Archives: Azure Services

Azure FAQs

Microsoft have updated their Azure FAQs.

A major section on Azure Local has been added, with 15 new questions outlining its use cases, hardware and deployment configurations, and billing and operational policies.

Subscribers can find the current and historical versions of this FAQs website with our PDF captures in the Licensing Guides Gallery. We also provide the full details of “What’s New” and of course, what’s wrong, with our “Cautionary Notes” that help you navigate any stumbling blocks. In the meantime, find a copy here: https://bit.ly/4aSbkIK.

Microsoft Discovery

Microsoft announce the GA of Microsoft Discovery, a brand-new AI platform designed to build and govern agentic workflows for complex scientific and engineering research. It helps researchers coordinate specialised Agents, connect to data, and speed up breakthroughs.

Licensing-wise, it uses Azure resources billed via the standard Pay-As-You-Go route, but there’s also a new billing unit called “User Messages” to track billable Agent actions. To help estimate costs, Microsoft explain that one User Message equals ten backend operations and costs $0.20.

The complementary Discovery App is in preview for smaller teams and students letting you start small before scaling up to the larger computing power of the cloud-hosted Microsoft Discovery services. The App runs locally as a desktop application consuming GitHub Copilot Credits, and thus users do need to be licensed for GitHub Copilot.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3Sa7NiC, useful billing information here: https://bit.ly/3TpR7nC, and an interesting case study here: https://bit.ly/4p7cnKJ.

Azure FAQs

Microsoft have updated the Azure FAQs.

The revised document includes a chunky new section at the end, all about Azure Local. A set of 15 new questions details its use cases, hardware and deployment configuration options, and billing and operational policies.

Whilst the live Microsoft website only displays the current version of these FAQs, we track and preserve all changes to the various online licensing guidance. If you’re a subscriber, you can always check out the details of what’s new (and what’s wrong!) in our Licensing Guides Gallery: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery. In the meantime, find the latest capture here: https://bit.ly/4aSbkIK.

Azure Purchasing Models Licensing Guide

There’s a new Azure Purchasing Models Licensing Guide available. Designed to make it easier to understand the different purchasing choices, it’s a great idea for a guide, but slightly misses the mark, with mixed up terms, sections, and incorrect facts throughout. We’re now documenting these “Cautionary Notes” in our Licensing Guides Gallery for subscribers, so you can grab the guide and see these details all in one place. Check out these new features here: https://bit.ly/GuidesGallery, or find a direct link to the guide here: https://bit.ly/49ZMTJw.

Understanding the right purchasing options in Azure is a really useful topic, and it’s inspired our training next month – watch this space!

Azure Customer Solution Licensing Guide

There’s an updated (September 2025) Azure Customer Solution Licensing Guide – a document which is designed to explain some of the rules and scenarios around creating and selling a solution in Azure. Historically it’s been targeted at organisations that Microsoft call ISVs, but that term’s been updated to SDC – a Software Development Company – and that’s probably the most significant edit in this updated document.

Keep your Licensing Guide stash up to date by grabbing this guide here: https://bit.ly/46LkFzk.

Hotpatching for Windows Server 2025 GA

Microsoft announce that hotpatching for Windows Server 2025 is generally available as a subscription service from 16 July, 2025, costing $1.50 per CPU core per month. This new way of installing updates that doesn’t require a reboot after installation has been available for the Azure Edition of Windows Server Datacenter, but is now available to servers running outside of Azure, as long as they’re connected to Azure Arc.

Find the announcement article here: https://bit.ly/44B2vQY.

Copilot in Azure

Microsoft announce that Copilot in Azure is generally available, accessed from the Azure Management Portal and designed to help you answer questions, complete tasks, and discover and utilise Azure services. It was free in preview, and continues to be free now, although a customer’s excessive use of a Microsoft generative AI service may result in temporary throttling of their access to the service.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4lEXfCh.

Azure Local

Microsoft introduce Azure Local for customers to run Azure services on their own infrastructure. It’s enabled by Azure Arc and provides cloud-connected capabilities at a customer’s distributed locations. Think of it as the evolution of Azure Stack and, indeed, Azure Stack HCI has already been renamed to Azure Local.

There’s no change to the pricing or licensing for Azure Stack HCI customers, they’ll just get new Azure Local features as they’re available. At this time Azure Stack Hub and Azure Stack Edge remain, but there are “lower-spec hardware” and “disconnected operations” solutions in preview in Azure Local which will be the Azure Localisation of these Azure Stack components in due course.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4eCWKUr .

End of Azure support plan offer

Customers buying their Azure services through an Enterprise Agreement or via the MCA-E have long been eligible for free Azure Standard Support, but Microsoft announce that this offer is coming to an end on 30 June, 2024. After that time, customers will need to purchase one of the paid-for support plans.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/4cASdBh (search for “Azure support”), and details of the available support plans here: https://bit.ly/44i3x1h.

Azure Standard Support plan offer extended

Customers buying their Azure services through an Enterprise Agreement or via the MCA-E have long been eligible for a free 12-month Azure Standard Support plan, and Microsoft confirm that this offer will be extended from 1 July, 2023 to 31 December, 2023.

Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3JA2cuD, terms of the offer here: https://bit.ly/3CTFrhq, and a useful comparison of all the Azure Support plans here: https://bit.ly/44i3x1h.