VLSC Software Assurance Guide

There’s an updated (January 2021) VLSC Software Assurance Guide. This is a useful document detailing how customers manage their SA benefits through the VLSC, and it’s fully updated for the imminent retirement of Training Vouchers and Planning Services.

Find this guide here: https://bit.ly/2QWvNWL.

Retirement of SA Planning Services and Training Vouchers

From 1 February, 2021 Planning Services days and Training Vouchers will no longer be allocated on new or renewing Software Assurance, and thus they are removed from the Product Terms website. Customers can redeem existing days and vouchers through December 2021, and the Software Assurance website is useful for further information: http://bit.ly/2kXtbbA.

Software Assurance benefit changes

Microsoft announce upcoming changes to three Software Assurance benefits. Here’s the summary and key dates:

Planning Services

  • 1 February 2020: cloud services offerings will be retired
  • 1 January 2022: last day to redeem Planning Services vouchers for all offerings

Training Vouchers

  • 1 February 2020: Azure training courses will be retired
  • 1 January 2022: last day to redeem Training Vouchers for all courses

24 x 7 Problem Resolution Support

  • 1 February 2021: incident-based support will be replaced with as-needed support and credit towards Unified Support

And the reason for these changes? There’s a useful “Software Assurance changes overview” document which you can find in the “Volume Licensing Programs” section of our Licensing Guides emporium here: http://bit.ly/MSLicensingGuides.

In this document you’ll find that customers are encouraged to move to FastTrack for deployment services, that Microsoft Learn provides some excellent Azure training courses – although new training and certification offerings are in development, and that Microsoft’s future overall support strategy focuses on the Unified Support model.

The Software Assurance website is also updated with this news here: http://bit.ly/2kXtbbA.