Customers buying their Azure services through an Enterprise Agreement or via the MCA-E have long been eligible for free Azure Standard Support, and Microsoft confirm that this offer will be extended to June 30, 2024, with both new and renewing customers eligible for support for a period of 6 months.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3u1mUPN, terms of the offer here: https://bit.ly/3CTFrhq, and a useful comparison of all the Azure Support plans here: https://bit.ly/44i3x1h.
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.
There’s a useful article here to help EA customers to manually calculate the savings they’ve made from the purchase of Azure Savings Plans: https://bit.ly/3MCBmUU. Full instructions are given to download the amortised usage and charges file, prepare an Excel spreadsheet and then do some calculations to determine the savings.
If you’re an EA customer and you want to calculate the cost savings on your Reservations, then there’s a tutorial you might find useful that takes you through the required steps here: https://bit.ly/3EK8Ht9.
There’s an updated (April 2022) Microsoft Azure Customer Solution VL Brief. This is a useful document detailing the rules for ISVs when creating customer solutions built on Azure: essentially, ISVs should purchase the Azure services through an EA or (and this is the addition to this new document version) direct from Microsoft via the Microsoft Customer Agreement. Partners intending to just resell the Azure services should use the Cloud Solution Provider (CSP) program.
Find this updated document here: https://bit.ly/39sdBgW.
Customers buying direct from Microsoft via an EA or the Microsoft Customer Agreement can make a commitment to the amount of Azure services they intend to purchase over a given period – this is called a Microsoft Azure Consumption Commitment (MACC).
There are some new/updated resources for customers to help them manage MACC: the first (https://bit.ly/3Jje1DB) gives instructions on tracking MACC, and the second (https://bit.ly/3KRs8jH) is helpful in ascertaining whether purchasing certain Marketplace offers will contribute to this commitment.
If you’ve got an EA and you use Azure then you’ve managed Enrolments, Accounts, Departments and Subscriptions in the EA Enterprise Portal (ea.azure.com). There are better facilities for Azure Cost Management in the Azure Management Portal (portal.azure.com) and there’s a new set of videos to explain how you’d manage these elements as you move over to this portal.
Find them here: Managing Enrolments (https://bit.ly/3HVCi1I), Managing Accounts (https://bit.ly/3oPazIj), Managing Departments (https://bit.ly/3rUCQz6), and Managing Subscriptions (https://bit.ly/353SKyt).
There’s a change to the status of Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise when it’s purchased through an Enterprise Agreement. It’s now designated as an Enterprise Online Service which means that it doesn’t need to be purchased enterprise-wide and 500 licences can be acquired to start an Enterprise Online Services-only enrolment.
Find the relevant page of the Product Terms site here: https://bit.ly/3ABfP5K.
In September 2020, Microsoft announced two promotions which entitle Enterprise Agreement and CSP customers to free Audio Conferencing licences. The changes listed on the Product Terms site for 1 February 2021 (http://bit.ly/3prduoo) confirm that these promotions are now extended to 30 June, 2021 from the previous end-date of 31 March, 2021.
Find the original announcement with details of the promotions here: https://bit.ly/33NIFkN.
There’s an updated (November 2020) Qualified Devices and Qualified Users Licensing Brief.
This is a useful document if you work with the Enterprise Agreement and need guidance on what type of devices/users need to be counted as Qualified Devices and Qualified Users.
There are exclusions noted as well as hints on determining which devices are not managed, and also a couple of FAQs at the end of the document.
Find this updated document here: https://bit.ly/3miwUdu.