There’s a new (January 2025) licensing guidance document for Microsoft Defender. It’s an introductory-level document but might be useful to start you on the road to understand the licensing of Microsoft Defender for client and server endpoints.
Find this new guide here: https://bit.ly/3EgYtCy.
Microsoft announce that Microsoft Sentinel is now generally available in the Microsoft Defender portal as part of the unified security operations platform.
The announcement article here: https://bit.ly/3WvzCli gives a good overview of what Microsoft Sentinel customers on the commercial cloud with at least one Microsoft Defender XDR workload deployed will now be able to do. Microsoft Sentinel itself analyses large amounts of data to accelerate threat detection and responses across an organisation, and is billed by the volume of data stored in a Log Analytics workspace and analysed in Microsoft Sentinel.
Find the pricing page here: https://bit.ly/3Y9DrO7.
Microsoft announce that Defender for Business servers is now in preview, offering endpoint security for Windows and Linux servers for small and medium-sized businesses. It’s free during this preview period and will then be charged at $3 per server instance per month at General Availability, when it will be available as an Add-on licence to Microsoft 365 Business Premium or Microsoft Defender for Business.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/3RZ7TVO, and a useful FAQ here: https://bit.ly/3BhF3d3.
Microsoft expand the Microsoft Defender family with Microsoft Defender for Individuals.
This is an online security application for Microsoft 365 Personal and Family subscribers, and is available across Windows, macOS, iOS, and Android. Licensed users simply sign in, and once their Microsoft 365 credentials are validated, they are granted access to Microsoft Defender.
Find the product announcement here: https://bit.ly/3yntqzw, and learn more about the Microsoft Defender product family here: https://bit.ly/3ymw7RM.
Microsoft introduce Microsoft Defender for Business – capabilities from the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint solution optimised for businesses with up to 300 employees.
It will be available through a preview soon, and thereafter sold via a CSP partner or Microsoft’s website. Licensing wise, it will be included in the Microsoft 365 Business Premium product, or available as a standalone offering costing $3 per user per month.
Find the announcement here: https://bit.ly/31VYmZP.
Microsoft announce that Microsoft Defender for Endpoint will be renamed Microsoft Defender for Endpoint Plan 2 with a subset of functionality being made available as a Plan 1. The new Plan 1 will be available later in 2021 as a standalone licence, and the capabilities will also be added to Microsoft 365 E3/A3 licences.
Find the full announcement with more details here: https://bit.ly/3DCezSs.
Microsoft announce that they are consolidating their threat protection products under the Microsoft Defender brand, delivering two experiences: Microsoft 365 Defender for end-user environments, and Azure Defender for cloud and hybrid infrastructures.
Microsoft 365 Defender prevents, detects and responds to threats across identities, endpoints, cloud apps, email and documents in end-user environments, and consists of the following rebranded products:
Azure Defender delivers capabilities to protect multi-cloud and hybrid workloads including virtual machines, databases, containers and IoT, and is an evolution of the Azure Security Center threat protection capabilities, consisting of:
To find out more, you can read the announcement here: https://bit.ly/347MhOO or watch a video here: https://bit.ly/36fquXY.